My house was built in 2004. Solid walls downstairs, partition walls upstairs. What is between the partition walls if I want to route a cable through the space? Easy job, or will I have numerous stiffener beams/laths to content with? How best to do this? For example, a larger hole one end through which to poke a small (e.g. dental) mirror, so that one can see what one is doing?
MM
NT
usually empty space.
To be brutally honest the EASIEST way I have run phone and cat 5 in this case is to simply slit the plasterboard and toss the cable behind it. That works until you hit a stud or a noggin, and then you need to gouge a bit.
Its NOT the way to runs mains of course.
here I would use a circular saw set to about 1/2" depth and cut two parallel slits and remove the board between, and chisel out the studs/noggins behind: Then tack the cable in place with P clips, and then finally stick the strip of plaster back with more plaster. Probably slightly below the rest of the wall surcace. Sand any rough edges and skim the while line, then redecorate that wall complete. Or if you are good, just the bit you screwed with.
Working with plasterboard is not hard - mainly mud pie, sandpaper and paint will make it all good, so done be afraid to hack in with gusto.
The walls are hollow, but there will be wooden framing inside - with uprights every 18" or so, and one or two horizontal noggins between each pair of uprights.
You will have to find a way of getting your cables through the frame members. You should be able to find them with a stud detector, following by drilling some very small holes for confirmation.
To get past each upright, you need to cut out a piece of plasterboard about 6" wide x 3" high - straddling the stud. If you use a Fein Multimaster (or cheaper clone) you should be able to remove the piece of board complete with its plaster skim, so that you can put it back afterwards.
You then need to drill a 1/2" hole through the upright at an angle, but as far in from both layers of plasterboard as you can manage. Do the same for each upright (or noggin) you need to cross, and fish for the cable from one hole to the next. When you've finished, re-fit the pieces of board - sticking them to the frame with Gripfill or similar, and making good round the edges with filler.
Sounds hollow when I tap. Good tip, though. If so stuffed, routing will be a nightmare.
MM
Our walls (recent) are stuffed with sound preventer and my stud dector doesn't work on these walls. I suspect because the desnity doesn't vary enough.
Jonathan
Indeed. A 2004 house could have the metal framed studwork. They usually have no horizontal beams unlike a wooden stud wall.
Get yourself a set of cheap cable rods, about 5 or 6 quid on Ebay. They'll easily poke a way through the wadding from one access point to the next. Then use them to pull the cable back.
If built by a particularly cheapskate builder (i.e. any of the big well known ones) its apparently not uncommon these days to stuff any spare building wast like board offcuts into stud walls to reduce the cost of waste disposal. Especially now that skip companies don't like plasterboard scrap mixed into general waste. Makes using the voids a pain later though!
tweaked the above with a description of how to build them, and added some illustrations.
Nice one. I added a few small bits in later sections
NT
Interesting web page, and can be adapted for other uses no doubt. It's true, illustrations DO save a thousand words.
MM
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