PVC or steel? also brass plates and cable TV?

[Nate Nagel]

Hi again,

After mulling over the work that needs to be done upstairs in my house, I am thinking that I may just cut an access hole in one wall and try to put in some PVC from the basement to the attic. I think that if I do it right I can put two in with only cutting one wall in an area that needs some repair anyway. One sleeve for two AC power circuits and the other for cable TV, phone, and whatever other low voltage stuff I might want in the future. If I'm doing that, I might as well go ahead and run some cables up there to provide cable TV and phone in all the bedrooms now, while I'm in the groove. (even though I don't have home phone service, still, it'd look nice when I go to sell the place.)

Question #1. I ASSumed I would use PVC because then I could put one length 7' or so up from the basement, glue on a coupling and another 7' length, repeat. Would steel be desirable from a shielding standpoint, or doesn't it really matter? These will probably be in the same stud bay, out of necessity (most of the stud bays in the middle wall of my house have ductwork in them, so my options are limited.)

Question #2. In two of the upstairs bedrooms I am using old .040" solid brass switch plates. I know that I can buy new repro blank plates to match. Should I do that, and just drill a hole for the cable connector thing? Or will the fact that the plate is metal cause an issue, and I should get one with a Decora hole and use a plastic insert with the cable connection in that? Or does it make no darn difference whatsoever?

thanks

Nate

[gfretwell]

Why not use smurf tube? (ENT). Then you can just drop a string down and pull it through.

[RickMeister]

If you run AC in PVC, it has to be electrical (grey) PVC.

If you want to follow the "rules" on coaxial, it should be 12" away from AC. If it has to cross AC it should cross at 90 degrre angle

[The Daring Dufas]

ENT, Ear Nose and Throat? If you choke a Smurf, what color does he turn?

TDD

[John Grabowski]

After mulling over the work that needs to be done upstairs in my house,

*I avoid using PVC inside due to leeching of chemicals and the toxic fumes released when it burns. Metal is much better, but requires grounding. You could try flexible metal conduit (Greenfield) for the power and install a large pull box (12"x12"x4") and connect the conduit to it. Instead of pulling Romex cables through the conduit you could pull individual conductors and then branch off with Romex from the pull box. You will get a lot more circuits in a one inch conduit that way and single conductor wire is cheaper than cable.

*I don't know. The metal wall plate would definitely be connected to the shield of the coax.

[trader4]

Shielding from what? The AC are all going in one PVC, the low voltage stuff in the other. All kinds of wiring is routinely run in homes without metal conduit, with less seperation than you will have even with PVC and there are rarely problems.

The material of the cover plate is strictly cosmetic. Unless you include the possibility of somehow wiring it up ass backwards to AC and making it hot. In which case, plastic would have an advantage.

[Pete C.]

Only if it is a conduit system, originating from and terminating to electrical enclosures. If it is a "sleeve" or "chase" that is open at each end, there is no such requirement. Firestopping is a good idea however.

The reality is that it makes little to no difference as long as you are using quality coax (100% shield), and even less these days with OTA and most cable signals being digital.

On the plate thing, metal plates are fine, the outside of the "F" connector is ground. All the cable line gear has metal housings with the coax (hardline) connectors directly screwed in. Since "F" connectors don't really match antique brass plates anyway, I'd suggest using nice modular panels for your comm stuff. I use the Leviton modular six position plates everywhere and put the blank fillers in the port spaces I'm not currently using.

[RickMeister]

Yeah, 100% shielded coax is great. Good luck finding it at a reasonable price. That's top fo the line stuff. Most coax at home centers is 40-50% shield.

[Pete C.]

Your local cable company will be happy to sell you a spool at cost, or give you smaller amounts for free. It's much cheaper for them to provide quality coax, than to have to send techs constantly to replace crappy coax in DIY installations due to customer complaints, or worse yet have to replace it due to hot spots in their CLI leakage surveys.

[mm]

They make wall plates now that are attractive, in my opiniion, but are sort of inverted funnels, so you can't see into the wall, but you can run cables through the wall and right out into the room, without the nuisance of terminating them at a wall plate, with the right connector, and then having another cable to go to the device.

It has room for several cables. For example, when I was going to run 2 RCA cables and an S-video cable from my computer into the wall, into the attic and to the video distribution center in my bedroom, I was going to use that. (Now that I'm only using one cat-6 cable (with baluns at each end) I don't need to do that.

If you're interested, I'll look in my bookmarks and find you a page that sells them, and what they're called.

(Even before knew of these, I would take blank wall plates, drill a hole, maybe put in a grommet, and either add the plug after running the wire through the hole, or make the hole big enough for the entire plug. For example, the wire from the speakers in my bathroom come out just behind the tv on the counter, through a plate like that.

I've also done it the other way, with the bedroom speakers and RCA jacks in the wall, and a couple other things. It doesn't seem worth it anymore.)

[N8N]

Didn't think of that, but wouldn't that be harder to "pull" through? (both pulling the cables and also installing in the first place) I do have to go through three sill plates to get where I need to be (basement up into attic)

thanks

Nate