Protecting your home shouldn't have to break the bank, yet many homeowners in the UK find themselves priced out of professional security. When you hire a contractor to Install CCTV, you aren't just paying for the hardware; you are often paying upwards of £400 to £800 in labour costs alone. This expert tax covers the installer's time, travel, and markups, frequently doubling the total price of your project. The problem is clear: high entry costs are leaving too many properties vulnerable to theft and vandalism.
Our solution is to put the power—and the savings—back into your hands. By choosing to do it yourself, you can divert those hundreds of pounds into higher-quality 4K cameras or larger storage drives. This comprehensive How to guide is designed to demystify the process for the everyday DIY enthusiast. We will walk you through every critical phase of the journey, including: running cable, crimping cable, mounting bases/ brackets onto the wall, mounting cameras on to the bases/ brackets.
By the end of this article, you will have the skills to install CCTV yourself at a fraction of the market rate. Skip ahead to answer your main concerns if you find yourself asking one of these questions:
How do I run cables around my property?
How do I crimp the connectors to the cable?
How do I mount bases & wall brackets to the wall?
How do I fit a camera to a base or wall bracket?
How do I mount a camera directly to the wall?
Running Your CAT5E/6 Cable
Navigating the How to of cable management is considered the most difficult stage of the entire project. While the physical mounting of hardware is relatively straightforward, running your CAT5 through a finished home requires both patience and a strategic eye. If you want to Install CCTV without the daunting task of cutting through the wall then having to replaster and repaint, we recommend several non-invasive, much easier techniques to keep the rooms your home looking like a home while ensuring your security network remains robust.
1. Discreet plastic trunking is a fantastic option for external walls or utility areas, providing a clean, paintable surface that blends into the architecture. Should you wish to use it internally it wouldn’t be as discreet as some of the other methods.
2. You can tuck your CAT5 wires behind existing decorative coving or if you have the ability, install a lightweight decorative one yourself to hide it.
3. If you want to avoid ladders inside, going low neatly under the edge of the carpet next to or under the skirting boards is an almost invisible solution that requires little how to specialist DIY skills.
You will also have one more decision to make when it comes to your exterior cameras, and this depends on hardware you have on hand, and how confident you are drilling all the way through the wall. There are two methods of getting the cable from outside to the inside of your home:
1. Drilling through both skins of your exterior wall - this is the more direct approach, it means shorter overall cable length, no cable left exposed and is best for getting to a switch or recorder in the main area of the house.
2. running the cable up to the soffits – this approach is the easier way to get cable into the building. Instead of drilling through 2 layers of brick it is just the wooden or plastic soffit, it doesn’t require as heavy duty tools and excels if you are storing your recorder in a converted loft space.
Whichever methods you chose to for hiding your cable and getting from outside in, the method is the same. Simply follow the natural path back to where your PoE switch or recorder is located. This way you will have enough cable laid to install CCTV cameras. If you’re ready to start planning your cables run, take a look at our cable options here.
Crimping Your Cables
Thankfully, the instructions moving forward are more direct and stay the same no matter what, so you don’t have to worry about whether you’re making the best decision. Once you have run your cable, the next step is to prepare the cable so it can actually plug into the camera and record. How to do it is fairly straightforward and unless you buy premade cables you will need a crimp tool and some RJ45 connectors.
1. Use the built-in blade to strip the cable a few inches from the end
2. Cut the plastic rip cord
3. Unwind the pairs
4. Organise the pairs into the T568B Order
(White Orange, Orange, White Green, Blue, White Blue, Green, White Brown, Brown)
5. Cut the wires into even length
6. Position the clip face down and put one wire per hole through the connector
7. Twist the wires so they don’t get caught on the crimping tool
8. Put the wires and connector in the crimping tool and squeeze
The connector will be clamped in place, and the excess wire will be cut off. You can purchase our crimp tool and RJ45 connectors here. If you need a visual demonstration on how to do this, click below to follow our video tutorial.
Mounting Your Base/Brackets
Well done! You’ve run and crimped your cable and now you never have to think about them again, you can now install CCTV cable around your own home confidently. The next step is to mount your bracket/ or bases to the wall. The ideal external position for these cameras are just below the windowsill of an upstairs window, inside the cameras won’t need bases/ brackets. To do this you will need a drill, drill bits, a screwdriver or a screwdriver bit that will go into your drill. Let’s find out how to attach this to the wall:
1. Put the mounting template on the wall and drill your holes
2. The base/ bracket will come in 2 parts, use the undo the bolts holding them together
3. Push the wall plugs in the wall
4. Line the base/ bracket up with the holes
5. Insert each screw about 75% of the way before fully tightening
6. Once they are all in fully tighten the screws
7. Re attach the front of the base (leave off if you are using a wall bracket)
Re attaching the front is only used on the base because how the cameras are fitted to them, this will be explained in the next part. It’s important to use bases on externally mounted cameras when you install CCTV because it gives you a better viewing angle and protects the cables from vandalism. You can find the right bases for your camera here, by checking the product page of the camera you are looking for or asking a member of our team. If you need a visual demonstration on how to mount a base or bracket, click below to follow the video tutorial that matches your bracket/ base shape.
Mounting Your Camera to the Base/Bracket
Those of you reading this through before attempting to install CCTV yourselves will have already realised the next step of the process. It is, of course, adding the camera to the base/ wall bracket. This will vary depending on which kind of attachment you are using to secure your cameras. You can follow these steps using just the tools provided with the camera. However, if you have your tools out from the previous steps you can still use those. Now, it’s important to note that how to do this changes slightly depending on whether you are using a base or a bracket so we will list both below, let’s start with the base:
1. Using the torx key provided with the camera, remove the security bolt and take apart the housing
2. Remove the cable cover from the centre of the base
3. Feed the cable through base plate
4. Line up the holes on the base with the housing of the camera
5. Screw in the bolts to connect the base to the bottom of the camera housing and ensure they are tight
6. Plug your camera into the cable you have previously run and crimped
7. Put the camera back together while attached to the base
8. Before fully tightening the security bolt, angle your camera to its correct position
I will place our video guide for adding the base in here before the wall bracket, so you can differentiate which guide you need to follow.
Now, the change where you install CCTV wall brackets comes from the order in which you do things, but whether or not it works does depend on you following this order:
1. Using the torx key provided with the camera, remove the security bolt and take apart the housing
2. Line up the holes on the base with the housing of the camera
3. Screw in the bolts to connect the underside of the wall bracket to the bottom of the camera housing and ensure they are tight
4. Feed the cable through the wall bracket
5. Put the camera back together while attached to the base
6. Plug your camera into the cable you have previously run and crimped
7. Re attach the wall bracket to its mounting plate and tighten the security bolt
8. loosen the cameras security screw, angle the lens to its correct position, and tighten it back up again.
As you can see the change in order comes from when you plug in the camera and when you lock the camera into place. It’s a small change, but doing it right means you only have to install CCTV cameras onto the bracket once, and not having to undo half your steps so you can go back and plug in the cable. If you need a clearer idea on how to fit your bracket, our 60 second video tutorial is below.
Mounting Internal Cameras
If you will be mounting internal cameras as well as external cameras, you probably won’t be using bases or brackets. When you install CCTV without them , you essentially do the exact same process, but without a base or bracket. Instead of bolting the camera to the base/ bracket, you use the wall plugs and screw it into the wall or ceiling. Here’s how to do it:
1. Using the torx key provided with the camera, remove the security bolt and take apart the housing
2. Line the camera up around where the cable ends
3. Drill the holes for the mounting plate of the housing and insert the wall plugs
4. Screw the mounting into the wall/ ceiling, if your cable is exiting via the side of the mounting plate and not through the wall, feed your cable through before you fully tighten it.
5. Plug your camera into the cable you have previously run and crimped
6. Put the camera back together while attached to the wall/ ceiling
7. Before fully tightening the security bolt, angle your camera to its correct position
Following this method, you can confidently fit all your internal cameras as a part of your system. We find that when using internal cameras, you don't always need vehicle classification and advanced AI, so we recommend something like the SPRO Economy camera to save yourself wasting money on a camera you won’t make the most of. And if you’re not yet confident enough to give it a go, we have a video tutorial showing you how to do it here.
Congratulations
Many domestic residents can get priced out home security with labour costs ranging from £400 - £800+ depending on the size of the setup. This tutorial has taught you how to install CCTV the right way, without damaging the walls and giving you options to find the best solution for you. After making it through this guide you will have learnt:
1. How to plan and run CAT5e cable
2. How to crimp CAT5e cable using a crimp tool
3. How to fit bases and wall brackets to the outside wall of your property
4. How to fit cameras to said bases and wall brackets
5. How to fit cameras to your internal walls/ ceilings
If you’ve gone through this article step by step, congratulations, your system is ready to go and you can now begin your initialisation process. If you have read this whole article through to see if you have the know how to take on this challenge yourself, Check out some of our cameras and recorders here and get started.
