outside wiring for inside?

[keith]

Can anyone tell me if this is going to work or suggest things to watch out for? I need to get about 10 cables (audio, speaker, not mains) from TV to PC, about 5 metres along the wall in the lounge. But fireplace is in the way and trunking would look terrible, underfloor isnt an option, and I want to be able to add extra wires easily in future.

So I thought about using pipes out through the wall along the wal outside & back in again. (other side of the brick cavity wall is just the side passage so aesthetics are OK) eg. using

?ts=30917&id=19046Which I think should give me a reusable cableway... am I allowed to do this with "waste pipes"? Presumably I have to be careful :

-about water ingress from the pipe to the lounge? Do I have to make sure to point the pipes downwards as they go out through the wall. And should I make the outside pipe run slope down with a drain hole at the bottom? Or just keep it horizontal & hope no water gets in.

-what do I use to seal around the cables ? (obviuosly need to stop draughts, insects etc) I think they use some sort of plasticene sometimes.

-is the white pipe OK to use outside - does it discolour or crack in sunlight/cold?

-do you think this is OK, a bodge or is there a better idea!

Thanks for any advice or experience, keith

cheers

[Andy Hall]

I see no reason why not as long as you are not including mains cables. I've used it in the past for various ducting purposes.

Yes, but expanding foam is a good solution for this.

Slight;ly is a good idea.

If both ends are inside the house and you do the fixing with solvent weld fittings then there is no reason why any water should enter the pipe, so I would not have any holes outside at all.

For the ends inside, I would not seal around the cables in case you need to add more later. I would use 50mm pipe, and thread two lengths of string through as you are assembling the pipes and fittings. Then you can pull cables through. Leave one in place to pull through later additions.

To stop draughts (if they are a problem) cut some pipe insulation or other stiff foam material and push into the ends around the cables. Don't seal them in case you need to add or modify cabling.

It is, but may look mucky after a while. You can paint it with gloss paint, however.

I think that it's as good as any as long as you don't mind the appearance.

Another trick you can do for vertical runs is to use rainwater drainpipe the same as for the house. You won't notice that at all. Depending on the situation, it may be an option for this job as well.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Fraser]

I presume you just want to route audio/video to/from the PC? If so, there are several wireless sender units that can do the same thing, without needing to drill holes in your exteriour walls.

I'm not sure if you can do this with digital video/audio links, or whether the video supports stereo, so you may have already discounted this approach for these reasons.

F./

[N. Thornton]

Hi Keith.

Its inevitable that you'll get water in the pipes: air from the house will diffuse into the pipe and condense in the outdoor pipe in winter, very slowly filling the pipe with water. This is a bad thing, and can be avoided by driling _very_ small drain holes on the underside of the pipe at a few points. 2mm should work nicely.

Regards, NT

[John Rumm]

Not sure if this will be an option in your case - but I had to overcome a similar problem last time I reorganised the lounge.

I ended up with the Hi-Fi stack (and DVD player + VCR) one side of the fireplace and TV the other. We have solid floors with a raised hearth constructed from solid lumps of limestone.

SWMBO was also a little concerned that the solid stone hearth edge was going to be a little toddler unfriendly should said newly toddling toddler come into contact with it at speed.

The solution I called the "fireplace bra" - you could say it is "under wired"!. It consists of a 2" by 1/2" hardwood top with a 5" deep (i.e. depth of the raised hearth) softwood skirt attached to the front edge. Biscuit jointed together, mitred at the corners, and with a nice radius routed onto the top edge. I varnished it to match the other woodwork, and it slides over the hearth providing a nice cover to the stone edge, at the same time as hiding all the cables as the make their way round the front of the fireplace.

It actually looks better than the stonework did in the first place.

[Colin Wilson]

This demands a picture ;-)

[keith]

Thanks - I thought there might be more to it. All very useful suggestions- looks like there's no actual reason not to , just need to be careful as suggested.

[John Rumm]

I shall see if I can excavate the layer of toys that currently envelops it ;-)

(probably not a bad idea anyway - might want to use the fire soon!)

[John Rumm]

Your wish is my command! ;-)

[Colin Wilson]

Looks quite nice doesn`t it :-)

What a time to be replying - can`t sleep - in too much pain, trapped nerve in my back, unable to lie down, hurts like hell to breathe :-(

[The Natural Philosopher]

Can't fault Andy on this, but I will toss another one into the pot.

I am not sure what e.g. BT use for underground ducts, but it looks very like mains water pipe of the plastic flavour.

Sealed with expanding foam and buried, this might be a neat soolution, although if both ends are inside the house, it should be waterproof to oustide anyway.

I can't off hand thnk why this wouldn't work.

Andy Hall wrote:

[John Rumm]

It worked better than I expected in a way. (Would have been better if I had made it the right width in the first place - rather than having to cut it in the middle to insert a new section!)

Sounds like you need a bottle of single malt anaesthetic! Rub a little on then drink the rest - I might still hurt, but at least you won't care as much ;-)

[RichardS]

AAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!

NOW I remember what I was going to do whilst the floor was up - run conduit for speaker cabling!!!!1

Doh!

Oh well. Expect the old gramophone player will be on ebay soon....

(alternatively, I'll crawl underneath or send the cat under when I do the hallway floor)

Richard

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Fraser]

cables from, and are they expensive? I'd love to move all my kit into a cupboard at the other side of the room here, but scarts have always tied things to near the TV. Plus, I'm sceptical on running video through long cables...any picture quality issues?

I just used a rug thats the exact same width as the hearth (total coincidence in size, it was a gift!) to hide my cross-fireplace wiring. With the TV stand on one side and a floorstander speaker on the other, the sides are also obscured. My hearth doesn't come out as far as yours though. Successfully hiding two cat-5s, two audio channels, RF, cable TV feed, as well as two speaker runs!! Thinking about installing conduit on next house purchase!!

F.

PS Looks like a nice system on the left there...could maybe do with moving the annual dusting off the shelves a little sooner though... ;-)

[John Rumm]

I needed to get two 5m cables in a hurry and hence went to Maplin. Alas they were silly money (i.e. 24 quid each!) They are decent enough however - fully screened plugs and coax used for all the AV signals.

If you have more time, then CPC have a better range at much better prices.

If you make sure you get cables that have individually screened video connections (i.e. mini coax inside the cable bundle) then they are usually fine up to 10 meters, possibly more.

CPC also do some flat cables - where every conductor is individually screened. These are quite nice as well - handy if you need to route through narrow spaces.

I think if one day I do a self build, I will make sure there is built in conduit everywhere!

Wot my nice audiophile insulation layer ;-)) It's a lost cause I have decided - lots of black kit, small children, and a dog that looses enough hair to make a puppy every week....

[Christian McArdle]

You can buy the cable on a reel (or cut lengths) and attach plugs to them. Not for the faint hearted, though. Wiring a full SCART takes patience and a steady hand.

Alternatively, just do what I did once and run a length of co-ax and use composite video. OK, RGB would be nicer, but it was good enough for the purpose intended.

Christian.

[Fraser]

Yeah, that's been my experience, a vast price hike. I might take the time to look around the web for alternatives, will try that CPC site.

Screened, even on the RGB video lines? That'll be a monster of a cable!

Hmm, thinks of lifting the laminate flooring....better not. One thing at a time!

You could probably retro-fit it to some places. I've seen a few sites that show you how to make reusable channels between floors/rooms etc.

No coloured triangles in key places around the room? Work for me!! ;-)

F.

[Fraser]

I know. I recently added phono audio-outs to a game console scart that was fully connected. Ouch, was very very tricky!

Never really considered building a cable from scratch though...interesting idea! You could do some clever stuff, like routing S-Video/composite and RGB through the same SCART, doubling the inputs. Mmm, interesting.

Nice and cheap as well!

F.

[John Rumm]

yup - mini coax is not that thick. The whole cable is maybe 12mm OD.

No but there are probably some nice round rings on the top of some surfaces.... about the size of the bottom of a cup ;-)