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How do you route wire through walls?

M

ManBearPig

Diamond Member
I've always wondered this and now I think I'm gonna need to actually figure it out. How the hell do people route wire/cable/etc through walls? I know it's ideal to do this BEFORE walls are up, but there's no way that's possible as this isn't a brand new house.

Thanks!
 
I've always gone through the attic and drop down into walls through the ceiling. I guess you could do it through the basement if you have one and come up through the floor into the walls.
 
Man I'm thinking I'll have to route about 100-150 feet of coaxial cable...seems like it'll be more trouble than it's worth.
 
kazaam said:
Man I'm thinking I'll have to route about 100-150 feet of coaxial cable...seems like it'll be more trouble than it's worth.
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Can you go through a crawlspace/attic from point A to point B and then into the wall? That wouldn't be all that terrible.
 
The problem is a lot of contractors are putting beams at the top of wall frames now, so there's no clean path through the wall. You may have to look for some cables (electrical, phone, etc) that are already ran through the wall and try to follow the same route.
 
Yep, I could go through the crawlspace or attic and go up/down. I just dont know HOW. I would never have even thought of doing that. For some reason this is incomprehensible to me lol.
 
man_breaking_through_wall_with_sledgehammer_600-02071279.jpg
 
kazaam said:
Yep, I could go through the crawlspace or attic and go up/down. I just dont know HOW. I would never have even thought of doing that. For some reason this is incomprehensible to me lol.
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Measure twice, drill once 😉

Or make a bunch of test holes in the ceiling to figure out where you are D: (kidding of course).
 
kazaam said:
Yep, I could go through the crawlspace or attic and go up/down. I just dont know HOW. I would never have even thought of doing that. For some reason this is incomprehensible to me lol.
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Find a good place to go up/down, then over, then up/down. You'll probably need to drill through a header or footer to do so, but this is roughly 1,098,754 times easier than trying to take wire laterally through walls the way you do when the drywall isn't up yet.
 
If you've got a crawlspace available that's probably your best bet. Hardest part is hitting the stud cavity. You can usually tell where you are by looking for nails sticking through the subfloor where they attached the studwall to the subfloor and/or looking for existing cable runs going up through the subfloor.

From there you'll have to drill a pilot hole to make sure you can hit the mark. Then another big enough to run a fish tape up through and make a trial run to make sure there's no obstruction (fire blocking, insulation, plumbing, ect getting in your way. If you have two people it's best to have one person fish and the other upstairs seeing if they can hear the fish tape scraping the inside of the wall.

Then mark out you studs with a finder, mark out where you want your outlet to go, and use a hole saw to cut out your box location. Find the fish tape, then pull it back down, tape the cable to it and run it back up. Pull it out the hole you cut in the wall, tape it to the wall so it doesn't run away from you, then feed it through an old work or low voltage box, stick the box in the hole you just cut, then anchor it down with the dog ear flaps that flip out when you screw it down. If it's a short run you can just use a pre-made 50 foot coax with pre-terminated ends and screw it to the back side of a cable outlet plate. Then screw the plate to the wall and terminate the other end to the splitter or whatever you are using to distribute out the signal.
 
Fausto said:
Find a good place to go up/down, then over, then up/down. You'll probably need to drill through a header or footer to do so, but this is roughly 1,098,754 times easier than trying to take wire laterally through walls the way you do when the drywall isn't up yet.
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Sucks though when you're dropping down the cable and find a frame piece that's horizontal halfway down the wall. Had this problem when we were running network cables and had to cut holes in the sheetrock anyways 🙁
 
Cut the hole where you want the plate to go, drill down as straight as you can. Go in the basement, look for saw dust on the ground, or if you have drop ceiling open up the tiles where you think it will be, put wire through.

If it's a multi story and you're doing the 2nd floor then it gets more tricky.

You can also go through the attic but attics are a pain to work in, especially in summer. Though if you need to go in the attic, now is the time to do it.
 
For running wire horizontally, you could use an extended length 1/2" drill bit. Would need to be about ~16" long in order to minimize the off-axis orientation of the stud holes. Sears sells them.
Or else: drill directly into the wall stud, using a few holes (regular sized 1/2" drill bit) and route the new wiring close to the outer surface of the wall stud. Once the wire has been installed, patch the holes.
 
Can someone give me a # out of 10 for how difficult this will be? I have to go from the satellite outside (attached to the roof), to either the crawl space or attic, then go to a second story bedroom.

Thinking it's gonna be like an...8. 🙁
 
kazaam said:
Can someone give me a # out of 10 for how difficult this will be? I have to go from the satellite outside (attached to the roof), to either the crawl space or attic, then go to a second story bedroom.

Thinking it's gonna be like an...8. 🙁
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It's all in how clean you want it to be. If you had a dish installer come out they'd just drill a hole right through the side of your house, run the cable in, slap a plate on it, put a little foam insulation around the outside hole and call it day. Doesn't get much easier than that.

We can't give you exact numbers because every house is built different with different levels of complexity to wiring things.
 
My sister had a sat-installer come out on her 2-story house. Attached the dish to the chimney and ran the cable down the outside to the first floor where the box was, drilled a hole through the stucco, through the back of their entertainment center, filled the hole with foam, and capped it off with a rubber stopper. Simple...
 
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