TL;DR: When Renovations Need POE-Jack®

Walls-open projects are your one clean shot at fixing Ethernet for the next decade. If you’ve been searching for “renovation Ethernet wiring,” “how many Ethernet drops for a home office” or “PoE wall plate for basement suite”, this is where POE-Jack® usually becomes the obvious answer.

POE-Jack® makes sense whenever you’d otherwise pull several Cat6 cables to the same location or leave a mess of desk switches and chargers behind.

• You’re finishing a basement office or legal suite and want pro-grade Ethernet, not just “whatever the builder left.”
• You’re reworking a kitchen, main floor or great room and need wiring for TV, streaming, work-from-home and smart devices in one hub location.
• You’re doing a small office TI where four-drop home-runs per desk simply don’t match how people actually work anymore.
• You’d like to reuse some existing cable paths (coax, Cat5e, alarm) instead of opening every wall and ceiling again.

Instead of running four home runs to a single desk or media wall, a POE-Jack® in-wall PoE switch lets you pull one high-quality 23-AWG Cat6e cable and fan out to multiple ports at the wall, powered from a central GRID PoE switch. That means fewer cables in studs, fewer patch panels, and no random five-port switches zip-tied under desks.

Quick Answer: Why Use POE-Jack® in Retrofits?

POE-Jack® is the cleanest way to upgrade Ethernet during walls-open renovations in Canada. If you’re looking for an “in-wall PoE switch,” “PoE wall plate” or “PoE wall jack for renovations”, POE-Jack® is that device: a small active switch that hides in the wall and is powered entirely by PoE from a central switch.

Instead of pulling multiple home runs or leaving a tangle of desk switches, you run a single 23-AWG Cat6e cable to an Active POE-Jack® wall plate that provides several powered Ethernet ports right where people actually work and watch content. A central GRID PoE switch in the utility room or rack handles power, Wi-Fi, cameras and streaming, so your renovation leaves fewer cables, fewer bricks and a much cleaner layout.

Who This Guide Is For

• Homeowners finishing basements, suites or main floors who know Wi-Fi and power strips are not enough long-term.
• GCs, electricians and low-voltage contractors coordinating wiring during walls-open phases.
• IT consultants advising clients on “do it once, do it right” home offices and small commercial retrofits.
• Landlords and property managers updating rental units or small offices between tenants.

Best GRID / POE-Jack® Combos for Renovations

Use these patterns as templates whenever walls are open in Canadian homes, suites or small commercial spaces. They answer the common “how should I wire this?” questions for basement suite networking, home office Ethernet and small office TI cabling.

These scenarios cover 80–90% of real-world renovations; most projects are some combination of “better home office,” “cleaner media wall” and “simpler small office TI.”

The Biggest Cabling Mistakes in Walls-Open Jobs

Renovations rarely fail because someone pulled too little Cat6 — they fail because the design never matched how the space will actually be used. Common mistakes that show up in Canadian basements, suites and small offices:

• Repeating builder-grade patterns: One lonely RJ45 jack under the TV or behind a desk, expecting Wi-Fi and a $40 switch to handle everything else.
• Over-pulling “just in case”: Four or six home-run cables to the same spot, filling studs, closets and conduits with copper that will never be terminated.
• No plan for power bricks: Streaming boxes, cameras and APs all get their own AC adapters, daisy-chained on one overloaded strip.
• Ignoring future MACs: No thought to how desks might move, a second workstation might appear, or a tenant might subdivide a space later.

POE-Jack® is a way to pull smarter, not more: one well-chosen home run and one active plate instead of a tangle of cables and random switches.

A Better Strategy: One Run, Smart Plate, Clean Desk

1) Start from actual devices

List the things that will really live at the location: PC/laptop, dock, TV/streamer, console, AP, camera, NAS, printer. Most setups need 2–4 solid Ethernet ports, not eight dedicated home runs.

2) Choose a POE-Jack® pattern

For most renovation work, APOEJK2-WH is the sweet spot: a 4-port in-wall PoE switch / PoE wall plate that turns one Cat6e into a small edge switch right in the wall box. You feed it from a central PoE switch and hang wired devices and APs directly from the plate.

3) Centralise power in one rack/utility area

A compact or mid-size GRID PoE switch in the utility room, rack or media panel becomes your one source of truth for power and ports. Wi-Fi, cameras, desks and TV areas all home-run back to that point with a small number of high-quality cables.

4) Keep patching and terminations clean

Pair POE-Jack® plates with LED-enabled patch panels like POEJKPP6-24 and POEJK6A-VI terminations. In a small rack, that matters: fewer RU of panels, faster troubleshooting, and less frustration for the next tech who opens the door.

When to Replace Old Cable vs Reuse It

A good renovation plan doesn’t rip out every cable by default, but it also doesn’t pretend 20-year-old Cat5e is magically ready for PoE++ everywhere. Use this mental model when you’re asking “Cat5e vs Cat6e for renovation Ethernet”:

Replace with new 23-AWG Cat6e when…

• You’ve opened the walls anyway and access is easy.
• The run will serve multiple PoE devices from a POE-Jack® plate.
• You plan to support higher-bandwidth or longer-term uses (office, studio).
• The existing cable shows physical damage or questionable terminations.

Consider reusing Cat5e or coax when…

• The path is difficult or expensive to recreate (concrete, masonry, buried).
• The load will be light: a single AP, printer or non-critical endpoint.
• You can pair coax/alarm runs with POEJK-2WIRE for 100 Mbps IP + PoE to a gate, camera or shed.
• You’re doing a partial renovation and want to phase upgrades over time.

Example Layouts: Basement Suite, Main Floor, Small Office TI

Example 1 – Basement suite with home office

• Internet and PoE switch live in a utility room or under-stair rack.
• An APOEJK2-WH plate at the office nook feeds PC, dock, phone and a hardwired AP, plus PoE-to-USB for a laptop.
• A second APOEJK2-WH behind the TV feeds the streamer, console and a hardwired set-top box or PC.
• Existing Cat5e to a back bedroom remains for light use until a future refresh.

Example 2 – Main floor / great room renovation

• Main router and PoE switch in a structured media panel or closet.
• One Cat6e home run to the great room hub wall with APOEJK2-WH and a 3- or 4-gang box for power, low-voltage and media.
• PoE AP co-located or nearby, powered from the same PoE plant.
• Optional Cat6e home run to a small workstation or playroom area with a second POE-Jack® plate.

Example 3 – Small office TI (dentist, accountant, boutique agency)

• Compact rack holds a GRID PoE switch, router, patch panel and UPS.
• APOEJK2-WH plates serve 2–4 desks at a time instead of running 4 home runs per workstation.
• PoE APs and a couple of cameras hang off nearby plates instead of separate injectors.
• Landlord sees a smaller rack, less visible wiring and a layout that’s easier to adapt for the next tenant.

Designing for Future Moves, Adds & Changes

A renovation that only works for the exact furniture layout on day one is a bad renovation. POE-Jack® helps future-proof things because:

• Each plate is a small, flexible “zone” that can serve desks, TVs, APs or devices as needs change.
• Centralised PoE makes it easy to add cameras, APs or thin clients without running new circuits.
• Tools like LED patch panels and test kits make MACs cleaner and faster if you standardise on the GRID ecosystem.

In other words: you’re not just cabling for this year’s work-from-home setup; you’re cabling for whatever the space becomes next.

When POE-Jack® Is (and Isn’t) the Right Retrofit Answer

Great fit for

• Basement offices, legal suites and serious home-office spaces.
• Open-concept main floors where media, work and Wi-Fi converge in one zone.
• Small commercial TIs where IDF space is tight and cabling is being refreshed anyway.
• Partial retrofits where you want to reuse some paths but avoid adding more home-run clutter.

Use with caution when

• You have very specific, high-bandwidth or low-latency needs (e.g. studio, lab) that warrant dedicated runs.
• The client insists on one home-run per device for policy reasons, regardless of cost or space.
• The building structure or regulations force you into very specific cabling topologies.

Even then, POE-Jack® usually still fits somewhere — at the very least for home offices, media walls, cameras and AP clusters.

FAQ: Renovation & Retrofit Cabling with POE-Jack®

Use this guide as your “renovation wiring checklist”: if you’re about to close up walls and haven’t decided where a POE-Jack® plate belongs, it’s worth another walk-through.