Home › Service areas › Berkeley

Wi-Fi and network installation in Berkeley

Brown shingles, bungalows and steep hillside houses. Alameda County, California.

Get a free 2-minute network estimate

Homes in Berkeley

Berkeley built so many unpainted shingled houses in the early 1900s that the style took the city's name. Elmwood grew up as a streetcar suburb after the 1906 earthquake and is full of moderate to large brown shingle, Arts and Crafts and Colonial Revival houses, and Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck both left their mark on the city. Elsewhere you find bungalows, Craftsman and Spanish Mediterranean houses from the early twentieth century.

Up in the hills the lots are steep, and houses tend to step down the slope over several levels, often with the garage at the top and bedrooms below. Many older houses across the city have gained a basement unit or a cottage in the backyard over the years.

The University of California was created here in 1868 and Berkeley incorporated in 1878. Refugees from the 1906 earthquake drove a building boom, and a 1923 fire burned some 640 structures in the Northside and La Loma Park neighborhoods.

What that means for your Wi-Fi

Old wood houses with plaster and thick framing

Early 1900s houses typically have lath-and-plaster walls and no data wiring at all. We fish Cat6 through the crawl space, basement and attic to wired access points, keeping original woodwork and shingles untouched.

Berkeley hillside houses often stack several levels

When the router sits at street level, the bedrooms two floors down get almost nothing. We run cable down through the house and wire an access point on every level, plus one for the deck.

Backyard cottages and basement units need their own link

Wi-Fi from the main house rarely holds up in a rear cottage or ADU. We connect it with buried cable, or a point-to-point bridge if trenching is not practical, and can set up a separate tenant network.

Around Berkeley

  • University of California, Berkeley: The university was created in 1868, and the town that grew up around its campus incorporated ten years later.
  • Berkeley City Club: Julia Morgan, whose houses can be found in Elmwood and Claremont, designed this building, completed in 1929.
  • Elmwood: The neighborhood around College and Ashby avenues grew up as a streetcar suburb after 1906 and is known for brown shingle houses.

Questions about Wi-Fi in Berkeley

Can you wire a Berkeley brown shingle without harming the woodwork?

Yes, that is the usual goal. Early 1900s houses typically have lath-and-plaster walls and no data wiring, so we fish Cat6 through the crawl space, basement and attic where they exist. Original woodwork and shingles stay untouched, and the access points are wired.

How do I get Wi-Fi to a backyard cottage in Berkeley?

Give the cottage its own link. Wi-Fi from the main house rarely holds up in a rear cottage or ADU. We connect it with buried cable, or a point-to-point bridge if trenching is not practical, and can set up a separate network for a tenant.

Why are the lower floors of my hillside house a dead zone?

Because the router is probably at street level. Hill houses tend to step down the slope, often with bedrooms below the garage, and signal fades two floors down. We run cable down through the house and wire an access point on every level and the deck.

Nearby