I will post a drawing of what I need advise with if I get any takers.

It involves multiple residential structures with CAT5 piped to them from a central location on the property that is outside.

For the most part I have questions regarding routers and switches.

Hmm, you want to network multiple buildings together, and have the central connection point be outside?

I've just imagined my take on that. Involves PVC pipe, plastic water buckets, plastic shopping bags without any holes in them, and lots of duct tape.

Anyway, routers and switches? By router I'll assume that you mean what I mean, which is an ADSL modem with Ethernet ports on it. Just plug the phone line into the router in the house with the phone line connection for the internet, then run a network cable from the router to the switch, then connect every building to the switch. The router will act as DHCP server to give everyone IPs. As such you will have to power-cycle the modem when getting IP addresses doesn't work and when the net goes down, but the switch should be reliable and can stay on forever.

It involves multiple residential structures with CAT5 piped to them from a central location on the property that is outside.

How many computers will be connecting to the ethernet cables exactly?
What purpose are you doing this for (ie. business, home networking, gaming, etc.)?

Have you considered wireless? Get a belkin wireless-n router with a -19db range booster.

I tried a wireless N and it wouldn't do it from inside the house.

What I initially needed help with was my cat5 was already in the pipe and there was no more room for a third one so I was trying to figure out how to set it up outside at a junction between the buildings. All my problems were solved when I found out I could make the connection work using just 4 wires of the cat5. It's a long story but in the end I got it to work.