Is separate wiring for looping is necessary for lighting purpose?

[smresh]

hi, I've been installing HAI home automation system using HAI Omni IIe.I have to do wiring for the lighting system. As we know we have to do wiring for the looping wires up to the panel of HAI. My concern is can we do the wiring of the looping wires along with the electrical wires of the switch? Means that can we run cat6 cable for looping along with the live,neutral and earthing wires? I've heard that wiring cat6 wires along these electrical cable will distort signal in the cat6 cable. If so then what will the possible solution to avoid these distortion in the signal? Do we have to separate piping for the loop wires? Hoping for the response.
thank you

 

[wuench]

I can't remember what the electrical code recommends exactly, but if I need to run LV and HV parallel I try to maintain at least 16 inches (1 stud bay) distance, crossing orthagonally when necessary. It isn't always possible to do that, but I do my best to stick with that rule...

 

[apostolakisl]

What wuench is saying is the standard approach, but the reality is not so predictable. It depends on what type of signal you are running on the data wire and how much current is running through your hv lines. For example, you will have much more potential for trouble running along side a wire that goes to a refrigerator as compared to running to an outlet that you use to charge your cell phone. You will also likely have more of a challenge if you are trying to run gigabit vs running megabit on the dataline. Also, every little bit of separation makes a big difference since em interference drops exponentially with distance.