Cabling Advice

[Nunners]

I'm about to put in quite a bit of cabling (cat5 & speaker) around our house, and i've been looking for some case-study ideas on how best to approach it.

I'm fixed on the hardware, and indeed have various cables running around the house already - 2 cat5's running up the outside wall of the house into the attic where my two servers are located; and networking into our study, next door to the node0 (which is in the understairs cupboard)....

My next task is to link my newly bought media centre with the TV in the lounge. Now it's only about 10 foot from the cupboard to the lounge wall, but i've got to get over a door, and through a partly bricked inner wall (the study used to be the kitchen which is why I think the bottom half of the walls are brick)....

On the most part the walls are stud, but I'm just looking for some advice on how best to run the cables through the walls without causing too much damage.... can anyone suggest a good way of doing this?

[TimH]

...I'm just looking for some advice on how best to run the cables through the walls without causing too much damage.... can anyone suggest a good way of doing this?

When I retrofitted my wiring I often found the easiest route was not the most obvious or direct one. I also tried to maximise the use of existing corridors (the void between the downstairs ceiling and upstairs floor, and into the attic space.

You might find you have access via boxed-in soil pipes, behind bath access panels etc. Biting the bullet and making a mess in some locations could then make it easier to run cables to multiple other locations.

Just one example from my cabling - to get to the boiler area would've meant lifting the floor in the bedroom and ensuite, and all across the landing. In the end, I could run under the upstairs ensuite floor to the top of the downstairs boiler from the soil pipe. I then continued up the boxed-in soil pipe into the attic and across the loft space to where I needed to end up.

HTH,

Tim.