patch panel help please!

1. Correct

2. Correct

3. Google 48 port patch panel. There’s loads of choice at reasonable money.

Presumably you have a 48 port switch in which case I would be looking at getting two patch panels of 24 each one for above and one below the switch.

If done nicely then yes the internet feed could well be routed to the patch panel. I went the route of individual RJ45 sockets which clip into the patch panel one at a time allowing for better configuration.

I routed the wan in and lan out of the router via the patch panel. So the WAN actually comes from downstairs into the back of the patch then from there to the router. Not sure if thats correct.

There would be no harm in having plenty of spare ports any how, in my experience they get used eventually! I have 42 in use, and 4 of those are in lag to another 24 port switch.

I acutally don't understand the question.... it all seems fairly standard.

The way I understood a description is that your local network has been terminated in a patch-panel with 25 distinct connection points. This must be located in a rack. 
The same rack can be used to mount a switch and the rest of the network gear.

Your switch size will depend on how many of those sockets you want to use for network-traffic and how many are planned as phone connections (for instance).

Regardless the sequence is:

ISP modem > router (this will define your network) > swith LAN port input.

Each switch output will correspond to one socket on the patch pannel. Connection is via a patch cable.

NAS is connected to a switch, not a patch panel (assuming they sit in the same rack). 

So you currently have 29 devices on your LAN, and every one is wired all the way back a single central 'hub' of some sort by the router. As soon as you have just one more item to connect, you run out of connections. Surely you can have a switch in each room wired radially to the patch panel to give some degree of flexibility, and an awful lot less cabling? Maybe I'm missing something here?

A patch panel is simply a load of potential connections - its up to you how you setup. I would set it up so your router and switch ports are connected to one part of the patch panel and you then connect your distribution ports in your rooms to another bank on the patch panel - you can can then jump across the patch panel without having to fiddle around with the wiring to the network components. Perhaps use some sort of colour coding and labelling method. Its simply a means of making changes and maintenance easier - its not really anything to do with ICT or networking. I don't bother at home with one - but I don't have as many data points as you appear. to..

Its worth bearing in mind higher density switches have uplink ports - usually two for resilience - but unless you have suitable equipment and know what you are doing JUST CONNECT ONE of the up links to a core switch or your broadband router switch port.

Also where you have 8 ports on the ground floor I would be inclined to have a dedicated switch for that - possibly a switch for each floor and then you connect the uplink port(s) from each switch to one or more central switches (Again unless you know what you are doing just use one link to one central switch).

I use a switch for each main room and a cooperating WLAN (multiple access points load balancing between them)  for all other rooms. I use VLAN trunk connections between the switches and I use aggregated links between the switches for optimum performance. The central switch is a layer 3 switch (i.e. it routes between VLANs) . The VLANs map to different WLANs, work and private use as well as diagnostic VLANs.  If your wiring man is also a basic network man he should understand that and can suggest if this would  provide any advantage for you ... given the  large number of data ports you are proposing for a home network some care might be required so as to avoid broadcast flooding especially if you have a single subnet for WLAN and ethernet etc and this where things like IGMP snooping and higher grade devices really start to matter if your network performance and networks app are  not to suffer - If you only intend to use a smaller subset of the  ports at a time however and the number is more for physical convenience as opposed to capacity then  this should not be an issue.

So given your questions

1. the ethernet [ports] needs to be connected to the patch panel, 
2. similarly the NASs would not be connected to the patch panel?
3. also there are bigger patch panels than 24 no. ones?

 1.. YES as per my description above

2.. NO  the NAS and other hosts would be connected  to the patch panel - where you would use a patch lead to connect to your switch as I describe above

3.. YES

Are you actually going to use all 25 data points around your house, or are some of them effectively duplicates - for example in case you decide to use the TV  at the other end of one of the rooms?
If some are "spares" then you may not need all 25 ports to be "active" (patched through) anyway.

My NAS drives are all patched through from the rooms in which they reside (one in the garage for example) to the patch panel which are connected to the switch.

2 x 24 is easier for fault finding than 1 x 48 IMHO.