When you look to add wireless networks to your house you may see that it “covers” 300 feet and feel that this should cover your entire house without issue. What you aren’t aware of though is that everything in your house can and does cause some impact to your WiFi when installed.
Do Walls Affect WiFi? Depending on the type of wall material there is a level of attenuation, or block signals, to a certain degree which will lower your signal strength and coverage distance. Each type of material will have a level of attenuation linked to it.
Lets explore a little more into a house and what can cause you specific issues that you should pay attention to in greater detail. Then we can discuss options to boost signal power and how you can cover your house solidly with additional items.
Do Walls Slow Down WiFi?
Most traditional walls in a home will have a impact on your wireless signal strength, the “slow down” though is more caused by the loss of packets and data which then need to be resent.
Housing walls are built out of a wooden frame with a drywall cover, this drywall is what you are painting on in your house. While drywall and wooden studs is the most common construction in houses sometimes you may have concrete, brick, or other materials used in construction which can all yield poorer results for your wireless network.
What Materials Block WiFi?
All materials to some level impact WiFi signal, some much more than others. Understanding how your house is built and what materials are used where will help you to add network coverage for your entire house.
As you can see from the image above the issues with signal get worse as you move from an interfering glass window, least issues, to a concrete wall which can cause five to six times worse signal losses.
Does WiFi Bounce Off Walls?
In most materials like drywall, plywood, and other kinds of wood and glass are able to be easily penetrated by wireless signals. The concrete in someplace like a basement is a material where when a signal impacts it can “bounce” or rebound but once you receive data you need to be able to send it back which is where this “rebound” impacts data loss.
Instead in these situations you would want to look into a WiFi extender like this one on Amazon which takes in the signal and sends it back out again allowing your signal to cover a larger area and allowing responses back from the devices to reach the wireless router.
Does Wifi Work Through Concrete Walls?
Concrete is one of the worst substances to work with if you don’t have a high powered wireless router, like a business class Cisco device. For homes this should be fairly limited to places like a basement or possibly in your garage.
It isn’t that you can’t work or that it won’t work, more that you will experience large signal fluctuations which can yield aggravating results. Instead this is a place where you will want to look into a WiFi extender.
How Do I Boost My Wifi Signal?
When you are needing to extend your wireless network into an additional space which appears to have very poor signal you should look into a WiFi extender, I like this one Amazon. They have a specific purpose of extending the existing network to allow you to get coverage into even those worst corners of the home.
Final Thoughts on Do Walls Affect WiFi
Managing a wireless network to handle walls and obstructions in your house isn’t entirely difficult but it can take a little bit of thought and troubleshooting. Nothing is as pleasing though when you get a home network setup that runs super fast and allows multiple people to stream devices and play games that don’t impact each other!
If you should have any questions, concerns, or other issues please leave a comment and leave a message!
If you are looking for a high performing and high quality router then I want you to check out my recommended gear page, this will have information on choosing a router, modem, and if for gaming what hardware will get you the best performance.
