Running a cable down through the wall...

[TJN23]

Hello all,

This week I plan on running both a coaxial cable and CAT5E cable from the attic down one floor to my room to make a jack. I want to get a wire snake and my question is:

Is it better to start with the wire snake from above or from below, running the snake either upwards or downwards to retrieve and pull the wire...


or does it not make any difference....

TIA!!

-Tim-

 

[BadThad]

I just used the cold air return ducts in my house to go from the basement to the 2nd story. I went to the top floor, tied a rock on a string and dropped it thru a return vent on the 2nd floor. My helper banged the rock on the basement vent until I located it, then I just cut a hole in the vent and grabbed the string.

Maybe not what you're looking for, but it works.

 

[TJN23]

Actually, it may help me for the future, but for now, I wanted to leave a D-Link DI-604 router/switch sitting in the attic with two CAT5e cables from it to 2 rooms where they terminate as a wall jack.

In this case I want to go from up to down, but is that the wisest choice when using a wire snake?

*Still searching for the answer*

Tim

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: badthad
I just used the cold air return ducts in my house to go from the basement to the 2nd story. I went to the top floor, tied a rock on a string and dropped it thru a return vent on the 2nd floor. My helper banged the rock on the basement vent until I located it, then I just cut a hole in the vent and grabbed the string.

Maybe not what you're looking for, but it works.

Good stuff. If you must do a wall:

Top down is best by far. Do some very careful tape measuring first, so you can figure out where to drill in the top plate of the wall. make a map if necessary, adding distances up from the edge of the access hole to the area in question. This way you can pick the space between studs of your choosing.
Tie something heavy, as Badthad suggests, on a string. lower it down, keeping track of the length. Sometimes you will encounter fireblocks or other bracing, making you move to a different bay.

 

[TJN23]

i've actually tried tying something heavy to a string before, but the problem with that idea is that there's a whole bunch of that soft pink fiberglass insulation stuff...thats why i was thinking wire snake, since it seems a little more heavy duty than gravity alone...

and with measurements, how exactly would i go about that? i dont want to end up with a hole in my wall and not being able to access the wire...that would be like tim the tool man taylor

thanks again in advance

Tim

 

[Lord Evermore]

Don't know how well it would work having insulation in the walls, but we just finished running wires and plates through 3 rooms. We tied a plumb bob to a string, located where the walls were, dropped the bob down using marks on the string every 3 feet to be sure it had dropped a full 8 or 9 feet, then bounced it around until the person in the room could hear it and drill a hole in the general area. Then the one upstairs swung the bob around a bit till it could be caught through the hole and pulled through (the bob was about an inch across, the hole for the dual-jack plates needed to be even bigger anyway).

Using a whole lot of extra string, you can tie one cable on in the attic and pull it down, then just tie another one on without having to pull it back up. Or go in the other direction, pull a lot of string down first so you don't have the end with the bob pulled back in, and just shuttle the string back and forth until all cables are run. Really proper home networking includes conduit and leaving string behind for later cable pulling.

We found where each wall was by first measuring the rooms and any stairways to the attic to find the closest horizontal location we could, and getting as close to the general area as possible that we wanted the jacks to actually be located on that wall. Then, pulled up the planks in the attic and found where the metal electrical conduits were dropped or cut through the beams to reach wall sockets. In one case, we went directly into a wide open space between closets and the wall we wanted plates on, so we didn't even have to try hard; in another space, we were going above a drop ceiling, so we managed to find a hole in one part of the original ceiling by looking for light and dropped the cable right through, then moved over the drop ceiling and went into the wall sideways and dropped the bob (would have been impossible to pull a plank up over that wall directly). In a couple of cases, we had to actually drill through planking that made up the ceilings, because the boards crossed between rooms and therefore covered the gap between the walls; that's where following the electrical conduit came in handy, since it was obviously a safe place to cut.

If you can at least get a heavy object down through the insulation, someone can listen and drill the hole and pull a lot of the string through, without actually pulling out the weight; that way it doesn't necessarily have to be a smaller object so it can be really heavy.

We did occasionally run into problems with electrical wiring and stuff in the walls, the cables got caught coming down or up while tied to the rope, but overall it wasn't too bad. It did take us a couple of days to complete though.

One warning, learn from our mistakes. Don't sit on anything clean after rolling around in the attic.

 

[onelin]

Your snake idea is a good one. Definitely the way to go. I presume top down is easier, but with a snake it may not really matter. My uncle ran cat5e from 3 rooms to the basement like this. (He's a carpenter + electrician) ...Personally I don't know how to do this stuff, I just punched the outlets. Good luck

 

[cmetz]

TJN23, I don't know what exactly a wire snake is.

Fish tape is best run downward because it flexes, and running downward, gravity makes it flex downward - the direction you wanted to go anyway - while running upward, grabity makes it flex downward - going back the way it came. There are some tricks you can use to help make fish tape creep upwards, but gravity is still your enemy. I think your tool is more like this...?

I also have these "creeping rods" - slightly flexible fiberglass rods with interlocks on the ends so you can connect segments together. These are great for pushing upwards or downwards, as they mostly keep straight and don't flex much. So now gravity's no big deal.

Generally I use these tools to get some pull-cord from start to finish, then tie the cable to that and give it the real pull. This also lets me figure out what kind of fun lies within the walls. I've had pretty good luck with trying to keep things as close to the drywall as possible, that kinda helps you avoid insulation and electrical. At the box opening, you often will need to just stick your hand in there and feel around for the fish tape or rods, that plus listening to where it's hitting the drywall usually does it.

Active equipment in the attic can be bad. You really don't want fires up there, and it's a possibly dusty and not very temperature controlled environment. You'd be better off putting your router elsewhere.

 

[TJN23]

hmm, maybe putting the router in the basement would be a better idea...anyhow,

wire snakes, fish tape, creeping rods? I have all seen these pieces of equipment at home depot and I suppose figuring out which one would be best for my situation would be ideal. I just have one more question.

I currently have a phone jack installed in my room (the telecom guys did it while I was away studying abroad, otherwise I would have made an attempt). So I was thinking I could use this to my advantage. Without actually drilling another hole in the wall, maybe I could use the existing RJ11 wall plate's hole and the path they used to run the wire down for my CAT5e and Coaxial cable runs.

Does that sound ok?

Thanks guys this has been helping a lot,

Tim

 

[Pulsar]

There are combination phone jack / ethernet jack plates that can be bought.

Remove the wire from the plate. Tie EXTRA HEAVY twine (think kite string) onto the wire, and pull the wire back into the basement. Now tie the string to the ethernet (leave it attached to the phone) and pull them both back through into your room. Wire to the new plate, done.

 

[TJN23]

ahhh! yes i think thats what i could do...so LsDPulsar, what you're saying is:

[*]remove wall plate from existing telephone wire
[*]tie a string to this telephone, leaving a LOT of slack
[*]pull the telephone wire back up to the attic (the extra string will still be coming out of the hole)
[*]tie the CAT5E cable to the telephone cable
[*]pull BOTH cables back down the wall
[*]rewire both wires to a new combo RJ11/RJ45 plate and mount it to wall

[*]done?

 

[Fallen Kell]

You might want to snip off the phone jack end piece, as it will cause a LOT of resistance (but you also might not be able to tie a string on it without it there...). I suggest looking up some really good knots for tieing 2 pieces of string/wire/cable together as you do NOT want to have that knot slip and unravel leaving you with a piece of string partway up the wall, and your phone line all the way in the attic (thus leaving you with no way to get the phone line back down to your room).

 

[TJN23]

yes, i was definitely under the assumption that there would be phone wire snippage...

yeah good call with the knots, anyone here know of some good knots, if my knots comes undone that would be horrible

thanks Fallen Kell

Tim

 

[skyking]

knots are a bummer, they snag. use a fold on each line, and some very carefully applied electrical tape. tape it up so it is tapered and smooth for passing through tough places.
Always do this with two people. If you hit a snag, have the other person pull back, and try again. If the resistance gets too high, give it up and pull the wire back down, reinstall it. No use wasting a run