Optimizing Telecom Room Ceilings: Tips for Installation, Maintenance, and Efficiency

Ever wondered why ceiling height can make or break your telecom room's efficiency? Join us for a deep dive into the world of telecom room ceilings, where we promise to unravel the secrets behind optimal installation efficiency and impeccable cable performance. Discover why a 10-foot ceiling is a game-changer compared to the minimum 8 feet, and how getting involved in the design process can make all the difference. We'll share practical insights on cable dressing, minimizing damage, and maintaining an efficient workspace.

But that's not all—our discussion also covers essential maintenance hacks to keep your equipment running smoothly. Learn how to combat dust and enhance visibility with light-colored ceiling tiles. We’ll share why wearing gloves can save your ceiling tiles from unsightly fingerprints and offer expert advice on rack height and cable tray considerations. Even if ceilings are unavoidable in your telecom room, we've got you covered with tips to maintain functionality and efficiency. Tune in for a treasure trove of knowledge that will elevate your telecom room design and upkeep practices.

Chapters

• 0:00 Telecom Room Ceilings
• 13:15 Telecom Room Equipment and Maintenance
• 16:58 Effective Telecom Room Ceiling Solutions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wiremonkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. This episode we're talking about ceilings in telecom rooms. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, ict personnel, even customers. We are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, like Stitcher or iTunes or Amazon, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Wednesday night 6 pm. I. Wednesday night 6 pm. I said Wednesday night 6 pm Eastern Standard Time because we just moved it. You get to ask your favorite RCDD and you know that's me, don't even try to pretend like I'm not your questions on installation, design, certification, project management. We cover everything, even career path questions, but I can hear you now. But, chuck, I'm driving my truck on Wednesday nights at 6 pm. I don't want to get into a crash. Okay, relax, breathe in, breathe out. Yes, I got you covered.

Speaker 1: 1:40

We record them and you can go back and watch them on YouTube or Facebook or LinkedIn, wherever they are. They're all over the place, youtube or Facebook or LinkedIn, wherever they are, they're all over the place. And while this show is free and will always remain free, if you find value in this content, would you mind clicking on that QR button right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee, you can schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me and also recently I started accepting advertising for the podcast as well. So I got an email from LinkedIn last week and my posts now they're just LinkedIn numbers, not all the other platforms put together. I got an email from LinkedIn saying that my post last week accumulated 9,998 views, so that begs the question where were the other two people at? Come on, let's hit 10,000 this week. So if you're on LinkedIn, send me a friend request. I do acronym challenges Project Management Monday. Tdmm Tuesday it's Some Thursday. Name this Tool. Wednesday. Pro Tip Friday. I got lots of great content coming out on LinkedIn for you every single week.

Speaker 1: 2:40

So tonight we're going to be talking about ceilings inside of telecom rooms. I get asked the question all the time, chuck, are ceilings allowed? We'll cover that here shortly. The real question is should you put ceilings in telecom rooms? So I'm basing tonight's show on as you be more successful building out a telecom room when there's ceilings inside of them. But first off, I got to tell you suspended ceilings generally are not recommended for use inside of telecom rooms unless they play a part of the air cooling strategy for the floor. But when you do need to put in a ceiling again, here's going to be five tips to help you be successful so you can get the most out of that telecom room.

Speaker 1: 3:32

Tip number one carefully consider the height of the ceiling. So if you have any kind of input with the customer right to dictate some of the requirements you need and you should you should go to the customers. Hey look, here's some things I need in order to be able to put this infrastructure communication system together for you so that it's going to perform the way that the manufacturer design. Cost of the building site preparation, asphalt, driveways, concrete foundation, building, steel, glass, concrete, electrical, hvac sprinklers. We are a very small part of that, so we get overlooked a lot. But there's an old saying my dad used to say all the time the squeaky wheel gets oiled the most. So if you get awarded a project or you get a customer asking you wheel gets oiled the most. So if you get awarded a project or you get a customer asking you, tell them you want to be part of that design process. That's going to help you be successful when you work as a team with your customer. That means everybody's needs are going to be satisfied.

Speaker 1: 4:37

So anyway, tip number one ceiling height, ceiling height. So you really want to make sure that you dictate at what height that they mount the ceiling. You can have a ceiling height inside of a telecom room different than the ceiling height on the floor. At minimum, that ceiling height should be 8 feet or 2.4 meters. Okay, that's the minimum. Feet or 2.4 meters? Okay, that's the minimum.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Now, however, I really consider you should consider 10 foot ceilings, which is three meters, which is way better. And why is it better? Think about this If you have an eight foot ceiling and you're mounting a seven foot two post relay rack or a seven foot cabinet, that's seven feet. If you attach a ladder rack to the top of it, right, that's going to give you what? 10 inches of clearance above the ladder rack to get to the wall.

Speaker 1: 5:27

You really need to consider the 10 foot ceilings. You really do, because that's going to give you more space. Mounting at that 10 foot ceiling is going to provide you that extra space you need for placing and dressing these cables and that should make your job easier when you go to and make you more efficient. You know who doesn't want their job easier. Now I want you to imagine trying to dress those cables in that cramped space. It's going to be very frustrating and very time consuming.

Speaker 1: 5:52

You know, without sufficient space, you know you could actually damage those cables or compromise their performance. Actually damage those cables or compromise their performance. Anything you do that changes the pair geometry in the cables is going to affect the performance of the cable. Now the better manufacturers are going to tell you that you really need to try to achieve Cat 5E, cat 6, cat 6A performance and they'll tell you they have the most headroom. The more headroom the better. But that still doesn't stop from having issues. Inadequate ceiling height can lead to poor cable management. It's going to increase the installation time. So if you bid the project or you give the customer a price to do the project based on having free space above it. That's a legitimate change order and you can also have potential damage to those cables, as we talked about before, and that's going to affect the network performance hey there, business owners and tech enthusiasts.

Speaker 2: 6:47

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Speaker 1: 7:24

Tip number two Every telecom room you have to have openings for your pathways for your cables to come in. Sometimes it's coming in through the wall, or what they call the structural assembly. Sometimes they'll come through the floor or both. It can be both or it's just one or the other. Any openings are going to be coming through the ceilings. Make sure that they are positioned above the ceiling tiles. So if you're having a contractor put in firestop sleeves for you or slots for you, make sure they're above the ceiling tiles. Doing this is going to allow for easier collection of the cable in the ceiling and then dressing it through the ceiling to where it makes it more organized and more accessible, because those cables are in what they call the interstitial area. You don't necessarily have to dress those cables pretty because they're going to be above the tiles, so this makes your job a little bit easier. I want you to consider where the pathways are above the ceiling tiles. If you have to maneuver those cables around the tiles, it's going to lead to a more clean setup. Now, improper pathway placement can also result in damaged cables, making future maintenance more difficult and increasing the risk of signal interference and data loss. Tip number three sometimes putting in structured cabling systems is going to require alterating structural steel or concrete slabs. Always seek advice and approval from a structural engineer before you do it or you recommend it does. Okay, safety and structural integrity is paramount, paramount. If you drill it through a concrete floor without proper guidance, you're only going to find out that you've compromised the building structure. You know, there's a thing called the Swiss cheese effect. Now, you don't see it too much in telecom rooms. You see it on floors where they got raised tiles, where they do poke throughs below. You put too many holes through the tile, you will alter the structural integrity of that floor. Another thing too is, when you go to do those holes, make sure that you hire a contractor who can do it right. They're going to x-ray the floor. They're going to use the right equipment to do that. Because if you drill through a concrete floor and you hit one of the messenger, one of the messenger streams, and you hit one of the metal leads inside of it, you can literally break it and cause a structural failure. Now, all this stuff is going to cause you problems. It's going to cause people to get hurt. It's going to cause safety hazards. You might even find yourself with some heavy legal liabilities. So get a structural engineer to look at it, hire a contractor to do it. Don't just say, oh, I can do that with my DeWalt hammer drill. No, no, because you know, sometimes there's even conduits and other things found inside the concrete floor.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Tip number four sealing materials. Now sealing tiles in general. First off, they should be done in a grid system and those tiles should either be non-fibrous or metal tiles and they shouldn't be any larger than two by two. Now, this is going to help maintain a clean environment and supports the structural needs of the telecom room. The reason you want to stay away from large fibrous tiles is because they can lead to a dusty environment, making it difficult to access specific areas without removing multiple tiles. You know, one of the things you'll see technicians do a lot to help mitigate this is they will take conduit and mount it to the wall with Kindorf and then cut a hole in the tile so that way the cables come down through the conduit and you don't have to keep opening and closing. Those tiles Hold that thought.

Speaker 2: 11:02

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Speaker 1: 12:10

Now let's get back to the show, here's a bonus tip for you. It's not on my list, I just thought of this. Some technicians in telecom rooms with ceiling tiles will sometimes mount a piece of conduit vertically and mount that to the wall with Kindorf and then cut a hole in the tile and then slide that conduit up through the tile. That way when you do moves, adds and changes, you don't have to open up the tile where the cables come down. And that does help over the long run. Because if you keep opening and closing a tile with a bundle of cables, what's going to happen is that hole is going to get larger and larger just from rubbing the cables and could potentially break. If you're doing those ceiling tiles with conduit, make sure you go ahead and fire stop. Now, it's not a fire stop assembly, but fire stopping is going to be the best, and the reason for that is it's going to help keep odors coming down into the ceilings. It's going to help keep rodents and insects from coming down into the telecom space, which you don't want them in there anyway. So always consider that Again, it's not a fire stop system, but you can use fire stop putty for that Again if you choose those wrong kinds of ceiling tiles you can lead to dust accumulation.

Speaker 1: 13:15

We've all seen those telecom rooms where the servers and the hubs and the routers and the switches have a layer of dust on them. That dust reduces the lifespan of the equipment. I've said this on a show before. Sometimes dust can be conductive and that can be a problem. But dust by itself you get enough of it. When you plug the patch cord into that system, because of the amount of dust on the pins it may not actually get work or it might work intermittently. That's even worse, working intermittently because those are hard to find, because you have to find them when they're not working. That's why you want to avoid using those fibrous tiles and they break.

Speaker 1: 13:55

And here's another pro tip. You guys are getting more than five tonight. Another pro tip for you if you're doing work in telecom rooms with ceiling tiles, have a pair of gloves. You can don't use the gloves that you pulled the cable with, but maybe carry, you know, maybe some some latex gloves or some. Or my dad used to wear these brown gloves in the wintertime that were made out of like a light cottony material. Just keep it from keeping your fingerprints being put on the telecom tiles. Okay, because the customer is going to make you replace them.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Tip number five the ceiling finish. A lot of people don't think about this one. So again, the ceiling. We were talking about minimizing the dust. That's a good one.

Speaker 1: 14:38

But if you have the op choice or you have the input, make sure you tell the customer to use light-colored tiles, light-colored tiles. And why that? Because light-colored tiles, light colored tiles. And why that? Because light colored tiles reflect light and that's going to make it easier to see behind the rack. Low light scenarios.

Speaker 1: 14:56

It's going to be really tough to distinguish those oranges from those browns. Sometimes I've asked me. I've been there, done that. You know you can get around that by carrying around a shop light. But why have to? Why fire a shop light if you don't have to? I mean some of the older shop lights. They generate a lot of heat and it makes it hot in that room. The new LED ones don't. But you can avoid all that stuff by speccing out to the customer that you know what working in a dimly lit room with dark ceiling tiles is going to make it really tough for me to do my job and that's going to increase the price. And here's another bonus tip. I know this show said five, but I think I've given you like seven or eight now. But here's the last one I got for you.

Speaker 1: 15:36

Some equipment may require space above and beyond that eight-foot space I just talked about. Most two-post rack and cabinets are seven-foot racks, but we do have the option to go with eight foot racks. If you've got that eight foot ceiling with an eight foot rack do the math it's not going to work very well for you because sometimes we don't use ladder racks, sometimes we use cable tray and sometimes cable tray can be, you know, six inches thick, 12 inches thick, sometimes even bigger. So if you've got an eight foot rack with a six inch tray above it, again that's not going to give you a bunch of space to get above the cable trays to do that work. And because you're dealing with taller racks and they might be wider racks because racks actually come in 19 and 21 inches or is it 23 inches, I can't remember off top of my head they come in a couple of different sizes. Most the time we use 19-inch racks and that's going to require more space.

Speaker 1: 16:30

The space you need behind it is going to be dictated not by where you mount the rack, but where the equipment is in the rack, and we'll talk about that in a future episode. You know taller racks well. They might seem like really cool because they provide you that additional space. They're really going to complicate cable management and require more extensive lighting. You might even have to do specific lighting for those taller racks. So just to recap, while the best telecom rooms are designed without ceilings, there are going to be situations where you might need to have one in there or the customer might have one there. By following the tips that I gave you tonight and understanding the examples and the potential issues that I gave you, you can ensure that, even with a ceiling, your telecom room remains functional, accessible and efficient. I hope you found these tips helpful and if you have any questions or you want to share your experiences, feel free to reach out to me. And don't forget to subscribe to the show Until next time. Knowledge is power.

Speaker 3: 17:27

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something Until next time. Knowledge is power.