Cabling under carpet...

[Marcus Fox]

I have a number of cables, such as CATV feed, aerial extension, CAT5 home network funning from one room to another. At the moment, the cables fit under one door, along 18 inches of wall, and under another door. It is a tight fit at best. I have just fitted an upstairs carpet, and when I finish the joins between the room and landing, there will be no room for these. I plan to cut a groove in the floorboard next to the wall and under the doors where the cables currently run , and run them under the carpet.

A bloke in Focus suggested I use a router or circular saw to cut the groove, but I don't have either. Would welcome suggestions that use an ordinary drill, or hand tools.

Thanks,

Marcus

[Tricky Dicky]

Don't bother. Shift the carpet grippers away from the skirting board leaving a gap wide enough for these cables. Re-stretch the carpet and if you can, turn any excess carpet on itself and glue it so that it does not leave you with a raw edge at the skirting. I had a similar thing done to conceal micro-bore pipes running along a solid floor

Richard

[Tricky Dicky]

Don't bother. Shift the carpet grippers away from the skirting board leaving a gap wide enough for these cables. Re-stretch the carpet and if you can, turn any excess carpet on itself and glue it so that it does not leave you with a raw edge at the skirting. I had a similar thing done to conceal micro-bore pipes running along a solid floor

Richard

[Andrew McKay]

Have you considered wireless instead? I've recently installed wireless here and it runs fine, and I can move PCs around at will.

I used to use CAT5 everywhere but it's a real pain by comparison. Using 802.11b (or the recently ratified 802.11g which is faster) is a cinch to install and set up. Initial costs are obviously higher, but the time saving is enormous - and you aren't constrained to your PC being close to the CAT5 socket.

Andrew

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[Shaun Robertson]

Andrew McKay wrote

Depends what you use it for of course, I'm in the process of wiring the house, I did consider wireless but the speeds aren't adequate for our needs. I backup my documents and ongoing work every few days to a PC upstairs, 3-4 of gigs worth of data. Takes a few minutes on a 100mbit connection, wireless would take something like 45 minutes.

I'm not dismissing it as an option, it just depends what you want to use it for. For sharing an internet connection I would have taken that route.

[BigWallop]

If the skirtings are in short lengths then lift them off and put your cables behind it. At the sides of the doors there should be a gap between the timber door jamb and the brickwork or plasterboard to feed cables past. We have to do this every day when fitting hard wired alarm systems.

[Baxter Basics]

Hi,

what is the shareware you use?

ta

Bax

[Andrew McKay]

AlarmWiz -

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[John]

Not strictly related but this may be useful to some folks:-

A common arrangement in some older traditional double-fronted houses is to have a solid tiled floor in the hallway with timber suspended floors in each front room at either side. The suspended floors have (or should have) ventilation via airbricks and there are usually at least two or three air ducts about 100mm square crossing the solid floor part to allow air to circulate between the underfloor voids. I often use these to pass heating pipework between the rooms when installing heating in such houses. I came across a house last week where an electrician had cut a shallow duct across the tiled floor to embed a trunking containing the ring-main serving the ground floor. He was embarrassed when he saw me pass two 22mm pipes completely unseen via the ventilation ducts, and without damage to the tiles. No doubt he will remember that one in future

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Regards, John