[tgm1024]

Admittedly, this is low-voltage computer wiring I'm talking about, but if there are any experts in fishing crap behind walls, it'd be you guys.

Let's focus on the room with only phone wire for now.

Listed out:
1. Top floor room with unused telephone wall plate.
2. The wire drops downward 2 floors to the basement.
3. Can I use that existing wire to pull a chord to the basement where I can tie/tape both the phone wire and a new cat7 wire back up to the 2nd floor?

If possible, this would allow me to keep the existing phone wire (used for fax) *and* have both it and the cat7 go straight to the basement.

(As a software engineer, I know all about wireless, etc., I just want the cabling anyway for other reasons.)

 

[surferdude2]

That sounds like a fine plan. Be sure the phone line is free to pull and most of all be sure you attach the pull cord securely on both accasions and serve it smooth with electrical tape.

I prefer cat cable to wifi also although the wifi printer is a blessing for sharing with phone visitors.

 

[lenaitch]

Might be tough if the phone line is stapled inside the wall. You might be able to tug on it to see if it moves.
If the wire has to go through a floor plate or fire block, installers will often drill only a 1/2" or so hole because it's small wire. If so, it might not be large enough to pull up coax if you get that far. Perhaps you can get at the floor plate and drill a larger hole.

 

[Nickd83]

While I admire your drive, I feel this is not going to be easy, as, even in old houses, the cabling is usually stapled, and it is impractical, if not impossible to remove without some serious muscle or sheetrock surgery.

That being said, there may be easier ways to get the cable up to where you want it, you just have to be creative, and would depend if you care enough to have the cable completely hidden or if you can deal with it running exposed(though properly fastened) inside closets/utility areas.

Is this an exterior wall? If theres insulation, forget about it, that will be difficult at best.

Is there an attic accessible above this room? See advice below.

Will you be utilizing a pre made patch cable or will you be punching down/crimping your own connector? If the former, probably wont be able to get it through the floor plates.

Usually when I have to get cables between floors in residential applications, I try to find closets that line up, drill between the floors inside them, pull cable up from the basement, go into the attic and drop the line across and back down into the room. Then go back and secure the cabling down into the basement. Always use a long, thin bit first, that way if you do mess up, it's only a small hole to patch. You may want to consider running a conduit of ENT(or Smurf tube) between the basement and attic to facilitate future low voltage runs as well.

And always make sure you at least do a cursory check for plumbing/electrical lines in the area. Not always possible to know exactly where they are, but usually you can guess how they are run.

 

[Missouri Bound]

In most cases it will. be nearly impossible.
It is rare that low voltage wire is installed as neatly as line voltage wiring.
Good luck.

 

[Msradell]

The 1st question is is the wiring you will be using to pull in the new wiring something that was installed when the house was built or was it added later? If it was put in when the house was built what the PPs have mentioned about it being stapled in place is going to be most likely the case so you won't be able to do it. However, if it was installed after the home was built it's quite likely it isn't stapled and will be much easier to use as a pull cord.

 

[tgm1024]

Yeah, it was a put in when I had the house built. Unfortunately, 23 years ago, I didn't take the extra step to walk around video taping the framing when I had a chance. Well we actually did, but it's on a dinky vhs under likely 2000 pounds of "must keep" hoarding rubble.

Yeah, I was afraid of the stapling thing.

 

[Mystriss]

I'd tug on it a bit and see if it's stapled anywhere. Also, given the holes through the wall top and bottom plates, probs only 1/2 as noted, you're probs going to be hard pressed to slip both through easily...

I'd highly suggest dragging a string through as a back-up plan. You'd also have to do some kinda cone tape job. I'd probs do them one at a time, but if two then make suure you stagger the coax and Ethernet cable heads and tape them up so there's a bit of a point ahead of them, maybe even tape on a cone shaped bit of plastic or a number of sheets of paper rolled into a cone. That's the best way to ease them through a small hole - just make sure you keep the head bit centered in the cone - if you do both at the same time, then you might want to give a foot between the two heads and do a second cone wrapped around the cords ahead of that one.

It is safer/easier to cut a short slot/hole at the bottom of the wall(s) you'll be feeding through, you just have to clear the bottom 2x4(s) then you can catch hold of it and feed it through the bottom/top plate of each wall. Problem is guessing where the cables are so you can figure out where to cut the slots. Then after you get the cables run/fed through you can pretty easily patch up the slot, or just hide it behind the base trim.

This slot was for running RG6 Coax + 2 14/4 speaker wires in an interior non-insulated wall. Insulated walls take a little bit more height cause you have to dig through the insulation a bit:

Insulated wall slot example here (ignore the one on the left, had to go around the radiator and some exterior trim bits so it's not typical) Speaker wire is attached to the end of a fish stick... erm Rod style fish tape fed through the right slot. Thing worked really well to get through insulation, but I don't know if it'd help you for getting through the top/bottom plate holes though. I didn't really need the fish stick for non-insulated walls.

 

[tgm1024]

Quick note from when I researched buying the actual cable years ago (I'm buying non-terminated cable).

Amazon and Ebay are absolutely the place you don't want to do this. BlueJeansCable bought a bunch of cat6's from multiple vendors and tested them with a Fluke, and the vast majority of them were cat5e's in disguise.

I suspect if a shady operation were to try to pull off that one with cat7's, they'd relabel cat6a's because of the shielding.

 

[tgm1024]

HUGE potential gotcha on this project I forgot to mention.

I have an in-home fire sprinkler system installed. These in-wall pipes usually are a straight shot down to the basement, but it's likely for some of them to travel 90° sideways.

This makes me doing any kind of drilling a very very tense moment in history.

IIFC, they're always careful to center those things in the 2x4's.

 

[Mystriss]

As a note, you might consider just running the cables and terminating the ends yourself. CAT7+ would need a tool (they make tool-less CAT6 but not 7 or 8 that I've found,) but you can do the coax with a compression fitting and a washer if you don't want to buy the tool -- quick tutorial on coax here https://www.diychatroom.com/f49/weekend-quickies-small-diy-projects-651357/index2/#post6128077

 

[tgm1024]

Insulated wall slot example here (ignore the one on the left, had to go around the radiator and some exterior trim bits so it's not typical) Speaker wire is attached to the end of a fish stick... erm Rod style fish tape fed through the right slot. Thing worked really well to get through insulation, but I don't know if it'd help you for getting through the top/bottom plate holes though. I didn't really need the fish stick for non-insulated walls.

I think I'm misreading this; I'll take blame for it.

Allow me to use abbreviations. (2) is 2nd floor. (1) is 1st floor. (B) is basement.

Your solution is awesome, but allows me to go from (1)->(B) easily. In the (B) case, the worst I have to worry about is landing on a beam.

But how does it work with (2)->(1)? It seems that (1)ceiling gets marred up in that case, no? And I obviously can't notch the entirety of the (1)wall.

Is that what you meant by "I don't know if it'd help you for getting through the top/bottom plate holes though"?

 

[tgm1024]

As a note, you might consider just running the cables and terminating the ends yourself. CAT7+ would need a tool (they make tool-less CAT6 but not 7 or 8 that I've found,) but you can do the coax with a compression fitting and a washer if you don't want to buy the tool -- quick tutorial on coax here https://www.diychatroom.com/f49/weekend-quickies-small-diy-projects-651357/index2/#post6128077

Yes: I always terminate my own cables; have for decades. 4-6wire phone/twisted-pair/rg-6 coax/etc.... The only things I refuse to do are RCA, phoneplug, or specialty stuff like S/PDIF (which no one should ever attempt on their own).

 

[tgm1024]

Ok, how about this. It's a thought I had mulling over for some time.

It's a horrendous idea, but I thought I'd float it anyway, to see if there's a safe way to do it.

The room borders the cavity for the exaust stove pipe for the water heater and furnace.

It's a double-wall pipe for safety, and required to be in the middle of the cavity.

If I drop an insulated wire conduit along the inside of the cavity along the corner, it'd technically be further away from the stove pipe than the walls are.

I'm guessing that's far far away from code, huh?

 

[Mystriss]

@tgm1024 Ah good, then you're just running the raw cables, lots easier to get through without the connectors.

The slot method would help you get cables to a keystone box/lv box/electrical box thing. It could help you feed the cables through the walls bottom plate. I think you'd have to do a ceiling slot to get it through the double top plate. Though you might only have to do the slots /IF/ it gets stuck along the way - cause it's most likely to get stuck at a plate hole.


To explain briefly as I can (I'm long winded sorry), the top/bottom plates are part of the walls 2by structure (under the drywall):

If you've got a platform build like me (I think that's the standard past 80 years) with 2 by wood framing, then the wall's (built like pic above) are holding up a "platform" that consists of a ceiling drywall, floor joists, subfloor sandwich, and the next floors walls sit on top of that. This might help explain a bit better:

That's my second floor office wall where we pulled the subflooring and you can see that wall sits on the subfloor, sitting on the joists, and under the joists is the ceiling drywall from downstairs - also all my cables that run through the floor in there (I ran HDMI, Ethernet, Coax, and IR cables to the game room and kitchen below.)

I've got the wall off the back side of my other distribution point (the one I made the custom coax cables for):

The flat horizontal 2x4 that all the cables run through is the "bottom plate" then you can see here:

the "double top plate" along the ceiling in the game room below. The cables on the left side will go to the basement. And the ones on the right side I cut a slot in the ceiling to retrieve them for other rooms, that slot will be covered by crown.

Anyway, when you run the cables, you've gotta get them through the holes drilled through the top and bottom plates of every wall intersection. The slot would just help you feed them through the holes in the plates, but you'd have to figure out where the slots needed to go...

Another option if things get stuck is a sub floor hole like I did in the second picture. It's a small enough square that a hard flooring wouldn't have trouble bridging. Could patch it with a strip of wood too (just screw "down" through the subfloor into it - don't hit any wires though!) It's the smaller square cut-out in the corner was plenty big to let me to route an Ethernet cable and a coax up through the bottom plate hole I drilled on the right side wall, and it also let me fish all the cables across and down to the game room. The ones I mentioned that go into the basement, we actually drilled up through the double top plate and used a magnet and a chain attachment on the fish stick in order to fish the cables through the top plate hole.

 

[tgm1024]

So help me, if this has taught me one thing, it's that the next house I build is going to have 16 straight as an arrow top-floor to basement 3/4" wire conduit (4 per room) sitting vacant just waiting for a run. I'd probably populate it with true cat7 at first, but it would remain there for future proofing any wiring needs.

 

[Mystriss]

@tgm1024 I was surprised how much of a chore it was too. I had more stuff undone than you from the sound of it, for me it was mostly my knees being like "we hate you right now" heh

I keep thinking I should just run fiber now and get it over with, but I haven't managed to convince my knees to rerun my speaker wire yet - I put them all too low to clear the computer monitors >.<

 

[tgm1024]

@tgm1024 I was surprised how much of a chore it was too. I had more stuff undone than you from the sound of it, for me it was mostly my knees being like "we hate you right now" heh

I keep thinking I should just run fiber now and get it over with, but I haven't managed to convince my knees to rerun my speaker wire yet - I put them all too low to clear the computer monitors >.<

Seriously, I'm actually debating putting a small bevel on a couple room corners just to get around all of this absurdity. Floor to ceiling, complete with baseboards. @#$% me, I can't believe this.

If you get someone inside the house, no one does this, but try to make sure they're both bonded and insured. I've heard the disasters on the radio over the years that are discovered down the road from "interns" (used to be called apprentices) armed with one of these friggen things:

 

[surferdude2]

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Corner-Cable-Raceway-1075/dp/B002DO172Q

 

[tgm1024]

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Corner-Cable-Raceway-1075/dp/B002DO172Q

I'm afraid of how that might look, because I would still need a wall outlet to make it nice, which would require me to tunnel it sideways some. I suppose it's easy....

But I'm really worried about the looks on that one.

Hmmmmm......

Any similar thoughts?