Wiring Installation

[mrkazador]

Im very interested in an IB setup. I see tons of pictures of how one can be setup many different ways. What i dont see is how most of it is wired from speaker to amp. How does one route wiring from attic to an amp?
Of course i could drill a hole in the ceiling and route the wire that way but it wont be pretty. Is there a faq/guide on how to route a wire through wall?

[Darren]

Just fish the wall, drill down through one of the top plates, buy a fish tape from a local hardware store for $20 and send it down, drill a hole in the wall where you want the wire to come out or where you want to install a receptacle and pull the fish tape through with a small piece of wire, hook the wires to the tape and pull it up into the attic leaving enough extra for hook up etc...

If it is an exterior wall you need to drill the hole in the top plate as close as you can get to the interior sheetrock so you are in front of the insulation otherwise you'll go nowhere.

[ebr]

You may also have an issue with firestops in the wall (2x4s inserted across the gaps about every 48" of height). You can find out easily if this is a problem by starting from the attic. Drill your hole in the top plate and send your fish tape down to make sure it will go all the way to where you want the recepticle.

[ThomasW]

I bet if you google 'fishing a wire through a wall' or something similar, you'll find a DIY websites explaining this process.

If you run into fire-stops, there are very long flexible drill-bits that allow one to drill at virtually 90 degrees from the outside of the wall through them from above.

[ken]

yeah the guys are right

l used to do installs for pay tv ( cable in the u.s )as well as "free to air" tv, when we were going down existing walls we'd basically use one of 2 methods....the first was as the guys here are stating, drill a good size hole in your top plate ( we used large drill bits or a "spade" bit....this would give you a good size hole to work with, then we'd drop down a builders string line with a small bolt ( about .25 inch ) tied to the end .this would give the string line the weight and guidance that we'd need...you could drop this line down the wall and jiggle it if you hit a noggin ( fire stop ) most of the time you could get past these .over here (oz ) they somtimes run smaller size "fire stops" ( 2'x 3" ) in newer houses..... in older ones it varied a lot form none to lots.

if we could'nt get down we'd chose another cavity or do the long drill.....we rarely used the long drill........

The second method was mainly for walls with insulation or walls with lots of obstruction such as brick walls with lots of random cement uncleaned off the inner face.....we had this plastic strip 8'long x 1" wide x a couple of millimetres thick.....this was taken from particle floor boarding and is the "tongue" that is used to join the flooring together ......it is great for any job such as this were you have to push/ram through tight situations to get through...if your walls etc are high you just join another strip on and you good to go......

when you get your string/strip down the wall then you cut a small hole to the size required to fit your needs( wall plate size etc ) then get a piece of wire with a hook formed on the end and find your string/strip and pull ithrough the hole to attach your cable( with the strip you'll find you might need someone in the roof to guide it up or down etc to get things happening ).

then tape on your cable by laying the string/strip about 6"-8" down on the cable....if you running a few cables make sure you stagger them by taping them at intervals along each other, and make sure your tape covers the end of each cable aas these tend to hook into things when drawing your string/strip back up the wall.......this is just a basic guide, hopefully it'll get you there!


Cheers ken

[mrkazador]

Thank you for your replies, it has been very helpful.

[rxdude]

Hi guys, I have another related question for running wires. A while back I was looking for 10 guage "in-wall" speaker wire and was only able to find it in 12 guage. I looked into it briefly and apparently the only reason for the in-wall product is in the event of a fire, the wire insulation is rated to burn at a certain temperature, and the in-wall wires may not release toxic gases when burning.

Is this correct? Is this type of wire really necessary?

[PeterW]

probably nullifies some type of insurance if you dont used in wall approved wire...
so you might want to check your insurance policy.

[ThomasW]

'Romex' or individually strand wires carrying AC can't be run outside a wall unless it's in conduit. Only wire that's heat rated (plenum rated) can be run inside heating/cooling ducts.