PM'd

Should add that I intend to bury the cable under a lawn, this is to connect to and power (POE) an outdoor wifi AP.

Hatch:

 

Should add that I intend to bury the cable under a lawn, this is to connect to and power (POE) an outdoor wifi AP.

 

I would consider some form of conduit TBH. 

Goosey:

 

Hatch:

 

Should add that I intend to bury the cable under a lawn, this is to connect to and power (POE) an outdoor wifi AP.

 

 

 

 

I would consider some form of conduit TBH. 

 

 

 

Unquestionably.

I'm no expert - but this is my understanding/thinking.

Obviously if was a long term thing, doing it properly would involve a quality gel cable in a conduit.

The gel is simply there to displace air to prevent water sitting within the cable and eventually corroding, damaging it or electrically shorting it. Conduit would again reduce water exposure, but also provide some physical protection against tree roots etc.

Outdoor rated UV cables prolong their live in the sun. Non UV protected cables probably become brittle over a few years depending on sun exposure.

In saying that - burying a 'normal' cable - it's not suddenly going to get water seeping in. I'd guess that that plastic could eventually deteriorate with water exposure and roots etc. So might fail in a few years. (I'd probably guess it'd be fine for at least a year.)

So it just comes down to how long you want it to last. Not sure if there are any risks of damaging POE equipment if there were a short in the cable.

I've not tested any of it myself, but do know of friends that ran regular cable outside on the ground from one property to another and lasted for years - not sure when or if it did eventually fail.

You either need to run conduit or buy ruggedised direct bury cat6. I haven't used any of that for a while and the last stuff I got was about $3m from memory wholesale. You can get cheaper gel filled that claims it's direct bury but I'd only ever use ruggedised.

I've had bog-standard Cat5e cable from the house to the garage for 5 years now with no problems. I haven't had anything connected to it for 12 months so no idea if it's still ok, but that was just buried a couple of cm's using a spade to make an opening in the lawn with the cable just pushed into it.

I've also had another run to my caravan/office for three years which has some under the house, some under ground and some running along a fence which was fine until my son went over the only piece out of the ground with the lawn mower recently !

You don't need a conduit. our copper line was direct buried and it wasn't in any conduit

it only got cut once and that was ween Water Care were digging around our water meter to fix a leak.   

Starscream122:

 

You don't need a conduit. our copper line was direct buried and it wasn't in any conduit

 

it only got cut once and that was ween Water Care were digging around our water meter to fix a leak.   

 

not apples for apples. 

think you might be talking about copper coax vs the OP's wanting to bury plain old outdoor rated cat cable. 

Goosey:

 

Starscream122:

 

You don't need a conduit. our copper line was direct buried and it wasn't in any conduit

 

it only got cut once and that was ween Water Care were digging around our water meter to fix a leak.   

 

 

 

 

not apples for apples. 

 

think you might be talking about copper coax vs the OP's wanting to bury plain old outdoor rated cat cable. 

 

 

 

 

 

Nope it was ethernet cable from the piller to our demark.

Chorus use 049 gel filled direct bury.. Which is a little different to cat5

Standard CAT5/6 shoved into hose pipe. Cheap, but it'll last reasonably long time and cheap to replace.  :)

Im running CAT6 exposed to the elements at the moment (about 1.5m), has been there for about 6 months...... keep meaning to buy some capping for it. 

Instead of a hose gt the black stuff used for outdoor irrigation. Also look at GoWifi.co.nz they have good prices on outdoor cat 5/6

The other consideration is whether you're likely to want to either replace the cable in the future, or add another alongside it. In which case you need conduit, and a pull-line pre-installed ideally that you can use to pull thru another. To save you digging up the lawn/driveway whatever.

I've got several outdoor runs of varying effort to lay....

Two solid CAT6 cables between our house and an external office, buried 3 feet in Conduit - has been there for 8+ years no issues - runs a gigabit link to inside and a connection to our alarm.

Two Cat6 Patch cables - temporarily run (now 3 years..lol) from an External AP and IP Camera across the roof and down through a window... Ill replace it with Ubiquiti ToughcablePro and run it internally through the roof when (or if) it gives any trouble.

As other has said it depends on how long you want it to be there and how much pain you're prepared to go through to replace it if required. It would be a major for me to replace the stuff in the conduit so I'm pleased it has lasted this long - if I have to do it again, ill be going for double the number and all gel filled for sure.