Behind Wall Wire Installation

kevhed72

I have to run the speaker wire behind the walls for my surround speakerS before someone gets crushed by them (FXiA6s). The plan is to run the wires from the speakers behind the drywall, through the top sill plate / header, fish it across the attic, and then back through the top sill plate, down the wall, and out the wall to the AVR. And yes, some of these walls are insulated.

Any advice / tricks from someone that has done this already? (I am not looking fwd. to crawling into my attic at all!!!)

AudioGenics

enlist your good buddy and get a wire snake to help...

kevhed72

My main fear is the snake / wire getting caught up in the insulation.
I just just went up in the attic and its about 100 degrees up there, so this can wait a couple days...

RDA

I just did my whole room with in walls. I found that for the tricky parts that a fish wire won't go through (like binding with insulation), use a series of hollow poles. I bought a $7 shower curtain rod, cut it into 5 equal pieces and put a strong wire through the first one, and then just started pushing them all along behind. Worked like a charm, easy to remove, and I didn't have to cut more holes in the walls.

Richard

lightman1

Take a GOOD measurement about where you want the wall plates. Try to get it between the studs. Then drill the top plate of the wall from the attic side. I use a smaller thickness of fishtape (1/8") to push down from the attic side. A smaller gauge wire taped tightly to the fishtape with a tapered end going up. If you take care and pull gently, you shouldn't have any problem pulling up the speaker wire, etc. Another thing to think about is future wire pulls. While pulling up the speaker cable, run a length of wire pulling string along with it. That way you won't have to try the fishtape trick again. You'll always have a string to pull up more wire.
Hope that helps you. PM if you need any more help.
Lightman Russ

kevhed72

Thanks for the good advice. I actually wimped out on crawling in the basement and went another direction. I am running the wires under the baseboard trim, and cutting small squares right above the trim to fish the wires up the walls.
It's actually working pretty well, considering I am working with Belden "10 white" wire, which is pretty thick (why did I chose 10 AWG again?). Anywho, follow up question...will there be any distortion / signal issues running the L and R rear wires right next to each other down the length of the wall?

I though I would check before I put the carpet back down...please adv.

kevhed72

Bump on the question...have to get carpet back down tonite...thanks

RDA

You should be fine as long as you're not running them near your power cables.