Wifi Issues in a House with Stone Walls

If you know where the best spot in your house is for a wifi connection, this post is for you.

If your internet slows down when multiple people are streaming Netflix at one time, this post is for you.

If you’ve ever had wifi issues because of how your home is constructed, say with a lot of stone or concrete walls, this post is for you.

I promise I’ll do my best to not let this chat about wifi issues become a snooze fest.

Oh, goodness. You’re not already asleep are you? WAKE UP!

We had numerous wifi issues when we moved into our Colonial Farmhouse. The stone walls combined with the long, narrow layout of our home made our wifi connection spotty at best. Our router, and we had a good one, just wasn’t able to do the trick.

Remember, the farther away from the router you get, the weaker the wifi signal. You throw an obstacle in the router’s path (stone, concrete, etc.) and that can also mess up the wifi signal.

Here’s how we fixed our wifi issues.

And it’s easy. If I, as a perpetual forgetter of passwords, can do it, you can do it.

We got rid of our router and bought a mesh network.

I excel at getting rid of things and I have some experience buying things, so this is going well so far.

BUT WHAT ARE THESE WORDS YOU SPEAK OF? Mesh networks? It’s gibberish! 

*bangs head on table*

Now, breathe and stay with me for a hot minute. Your Netflix queue is depending on you right now! Pull it together!

A mesh network is two or more little devices that replace your router. (In our case, those devices are three of those cute little white circles in the above picture.)

Instead of your wifi connection coming from one central location – your router – it is coming from multiple points that work together.

It’s the difference between an individual sport and a team sport.

As you move through the house, it is like your wifi connection is moving with you from point to point. If one of the points goes down, it automatically reroutes the signal to the next point. If multiple people are using the internet in multiple locations in the house, it will share the internet with them through these points (aka the mesh network).

You still with me? You’re doing great with this whole solving wifi issues thing.

Here are the general steps to get the mesh network going:

1. Buy the mesh network online. (This is the one we used.)
2. Wait anxiously for it to come.
3. Download the app to your phone that manages the mesh network.
4. Follow the prompts on the app to get everything set up.
5. Yay! You solved your wifi issues and are pretty much a hero now.

The hardest part of this whole process is probably deciding where to place these little devices strategically around your house.

(One of them has to connect to your modem. In case my parents are reading this, I will remind them that the modem is how the internet comes into the house from your internet provider. You need that. Don’t unplug it. P.S. Love you lots.)

We have one connected to our modem, one upstairs in our office, and one in our laundry room in the back of the house.

Our mesh network works great with just three points. Our house with stone walls is 2,300 sq. ft. We also get a strong wifi connection approximately 100-ft. into our backyard. Before the mesh network, we couldn’t even get a wifi connection on our deck.

If you have a much larger house than we do, you can buy a mesh network with more than three points. It is totally customizable.

The really cool thing about this mesh network app is that we can control when our kids can access the internet on their devices.

Each device can be set differently, but right now we have the internet set to turn off on their devices at 9 p.m. If we want to extend that, we can use the app to quickly grant an internet usage extension by device.

We can also control our network via this app from anywhere. If we need to restart the network, change a device’s access, grant guest permission, etc. we don’t have to be home to do that. It’s been so handy!

I’m so happy we solved our wifi issues by ditching our router for a mesh network. Either the router had to go or the stone walls and I’m partial to those stone walls.

My only regret is that we didn’t make the change sooner. We suffered for months, people. MONTHS. It might have been weeks, actually. Time really slows down when your wifi connection is on the fritz.

P.S. Google doesn’t know who I am and they did not sponsor this wifi issues post. I just really like our wifi connection now that we switched to their mesh network. Other companies make mesh networks, so pick one that works for you. I did include affiliate links to the network we purchased in this post. I also had Handy Husband proofread this post to make sure I got the technical lingo correct. For the record, he did not approve of me calling the mesh network points or devices cute. But they are!  

P.P.S. This description of a mesh network was very helpful to me. 

One more thing – Handy Husband just told me you can buy wall mounts for these things so that your wifi point hangs on the wall by your outlet and doesn’t need to sit on the desk, floor, or washing machine in our case. We SO need this.

Well, this has been fun! I hope it wasn’t a total snooze fest for you. If you’re still awake, here are some other posts to keep that pep in your step!

Hiding a Router and Modem in Plain Sight – Wrote this years earlier!

Nightstand Cord Hack – This has been a lifesaver.

Anise Biscotti  – This is what I bake to cheer up friends who are sad about their wifi issues.