How do you route wire through walls?

[ManBearPig]

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.

Honestly I would be happy to make it be kinda messy for the time being. I still couldn't make it that simple, even if it was messy though. The room is on the opposite side of the house the satellite is. So at the very least, i'd drill a hole through the brick, end up in one bedroom, drag the wire through the floor and end up in the correct bedroom lol.

 

[ManBearPig]

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...

I could just string the cable along the outside of the house or even over the roof (lol) but the problem is the bedroom is on the front side of the house. I'd really rather NOT have cable along the front of the house. The backside, i don't care, but I would like the front to look decent haha.

 

[vailr]

Is cable service available? Might be less messy than satellite reception.

 

[ManBearPig]

Nah it's free to air satellite.

 

[PingSpike]

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.

Its pretty much impossible for us to say without knowing exactly what your house looks like. And even then who knows what the interior construction of the walls looks like? The answer to that question is no one or some guy that built it and has a good memory. But its going to be a bitch. It will increase in bitchiness depending upon your tolerance for it looking like shit. If you just ran the cable around the house and in through the window it'd still be a bitch and really be shit but that's probably the easiest and shittiest way.

If you have an attic it might be cleanest to route the cable from the roof under the soffit, drill a hole in the top of an interior wall of the target room from the attic and drop the cable in there. Then you can probably use a utility knife to cut a clean outlet box hole. Stick in a old work gang box and it'd be pretty nice. But there's all kind of crap that can go wrong with that plan, some of it you may only discover when you try and fail.

 

[BoomerD]

Easiest will probably be to run the coax from the satellite into the attic, then drill through a wall header and drop down. Of course, depending on the age of the house, whether the wall has internal "fire blocks" and how much space you have above that wall will determine how difficult the process becomes...

The external walls in my house have 2x4's across the studs at 4' spacing. (alternating between the studs. _|-|_|-|_|-|
Internal walls only have the top fire block like in the picture above...but that's still 12" below the header IIRC.

It's a PITA for trying to feed cable...and makes running it down the outside of the house the only "easy" option. (unless I want to start ripping down drywall)

 

[SlitheryDee]

I've thought about this before. You'd have to drop the wire from the attic and hope there isn't anything in the way on the way down. Then I guess you knock a hole in the wall about where you'll put the outlet and fish around with a bent clothes hanger or other hooked tool until you can pull the wire through. If there's a board on top of the wall it shouldn't be too much trouble to drill a hole to drop the wire through.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

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.

That's exactly what a buddy and I did when I bought my house. For whatever reason, it didn't have cable jacks in two bedrooms so he got into my attic and I was in the rooms below and I punched a hole in the wall and he dropped the cable down. It wasn't that bad.

I've thought about this before. You'd have to drop the wire from the attic and hope there isn't anything in the way on the way down.

Exterior walls will be the walls where you'll have problems due to insulation. If you use interior walls, you're probably fine and it should be pretty easy.

 

[PingSpike]

That's exactly what a buddy and I did when I bought my house. For whatever reason, it didn't have cable jacks in two bedrooms so he got into my attic and I was in the rooms below and I punched a hole in the wall and he dropped the cable down. It wasn't that bad.

Of course it wasn't. You weren't the one crawling around in the attic with spiders all over you!

 

[ManBearPig]

Bad news: the wall where the outlet will be is an external wall.

Good news: the attic is right above the room.

 

[0roo0roo]

ghetto method, wire hanger, push through wall board near the floor, sometimes easier to cut a bit of wire hanger shove it into a drill and slowly push it through. this is to avoid drilling through wiring, though no wiring should be that low anyways.

 

[0roo0roo]

oh. external wall, nm then

 

[SphinxnihpS]

If you have to ask, pay someone.

/thread

 

[KaOTiK]

Attach wire to mouse, place cheese where you want mouse to come out.

 

[IronWing]

Doorknobs make most excellent drywall hole saws.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Of course it wasn't. You weren't the one crawling around in the attic with spiders all over you!

Attics aren't bad. Now crawl spaces, on the other hand -- D:

 

[Howard]

Rip out all the drywall and run some conduit ftw.

 

[Mark R]

Fish tape. A wire coat-hanger unravelled into a stiff wire can work at a pinch, but isn't good at going round corners.

To assist, you can attach a neodymium supermagnet to the end of the tape, and pull it through with another supermagnet.

Often, you'll have to cut holes in the sheetrock at strategic places, so that you can pull the wire through. Pro tip: Use a hole saw to cut out 3" holes. When finished, drill 2 holes diametrically opposite next to the big hole. Attach a plywood strip inside to the back of the drywall in the hole, and use the newly drilled holes to screw it in place. Screw the hole-sawn piece to the plywood. Use filler to repair the gap and cover the screws, then repaint.

 

[Squisher]

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.

They sell a real nice 12" long 1/8" drill at Home Depot. If you have quarter molding what I usually do is pull it far enough away from the baseboard to fit that 1/8" drill down behind, drill through the floor and leave the drill in the hole while I go down to the basement or crawl space. Once down there I move over a couple inches to get to the center of the wall. I use that long drill for tons of stuff like this. Even if I make a mistake, what does it take to fill a 1/8" hole? Not much.

 

[ManBearPig]

Fish tape. A wire coat-hanger unravelled into a stiff wire can work at a pinch, but isn't good at going round corners.

To assist, you can attach a neodymium supermagnet to the end of the tape, and pull it through with another supermagnet.

Often, you'll have to cut holes in the sheetrock at strategic places, so that you can pull the wire through. Pro tip: Use a hole saw to cut out 3" holes. When finished, drill 2 holes diametrically opposite next to the big hole. Attach a plywood strip inside to the back of the drywall in the hole, and use the newly drilled holes to screw it in place. Screw the hole-sawn piece to the plywood. Use filler to repair the gap and cover the screws, then repaint.

They sell a real nice 12" long 1/8" drill at Home Depot. If you have quarter molding what I usually do is pull it far enough away from the baseboard to fit that 1/8" drill down behind, drill through the floor and leave the drill in the hole while I go down to the basement or crawl space. Once down there I move over a couple inches to get to the center of the wall. I use that long drill for tons of stuff like this. Even if I make a mistake, what does it take to fill a 1/8" hole? Not much.

this truly sounds like a nightmare.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Sounds to me like you should go ahead and run the wire through the attic and choose a different, interior wall in the desired room to run the wire out of. Kinda ghetto, but you could staple the wire just above the molding along the bottom of the wall to where your receiver will be. I've seen it done and it doesn't look horrible. You might even be able to choose a color of coaxial cable that roughly matches your walls.

 

[NoCreativity]

Have any success?

This weekend I ran some coax from my attic to my basement. Used the opening for the vent stack. Although my house is a ranch so it was fairly easy. Tried to go through a different hole a few weeks ago without success.

 

[conehead433]

If you have to ask, pay someone.

/thread

This. I worked as a low voltage electrician, so I did this for a living. If I was faced with a satellite installer who was going to run wires on the outside of my house, or poke holes in the floor, I would get a local professional to wire the house.

 

[CPA]

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.

This is what I had to do when I want to route a second Cat5 line. I taped two lines to the existing line, then pulled the existing line up, however, there were points that it was very difficult due to the top-plate of the frame.

 

[lytalbayre]

It really depends.. are you walls all insulated? How much access you have, etc. I've had to open several walls in order to get around studs, etc. in the past..... Let's just say i'm now better at matching texture on walls than when I first started....