Running cable down wall from attic difficulties

Howdy,

I'm fairly new to this community, the wiki really helped me out with taking electricity out to my shed and that works really well with that. I'm prett y well versed in the technical knowledge of electronics, mains electrics, l ow-voltage, networking and all round interested in DIY, just don't have so much practical experience with other DIY tasks. Anyhow.. TL;DR at the end i f people want it. ;-)

I am re-doing my home-network, right now it was just a bunch of cables runn ing behind the wardrobes and really messy, all ending up in a little ex-fir eplace/chimney place. I decided to try and tidy it by sticking them on euro data modules and putting some rather expensive D Line trunking but I regre tted that.. it looks fairly messy and it would have made sense if I wired i t from the attic which is just a storage space. Boring story I know.. here' s a picture:

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I have everything ready to do my home network properly but I can't seem to figure out how to get some Cat5e down the walls from the attic, if I was ar ound when the house was decorated I'd probably have a better idea but I was 1 years old, which dates it at roughly 1998 which is fairly modern by hous e standards.

I tried this about 4 years ago, gave up and never tried again. I pulled out the flooring under the area I know the wall I want to drop cable down is. I attempted to drill with a wood drill bit but then tried with another bit that was thinner but just as long. Today, I tried drilling more than one ho le which was probably not a great idea but couldn't get very far.

After looking at it, I think I hit plaster. I don't really know how walls a re constructed, I know that this isn't a hollow wall but surely it isn't fu lly plastered up within although it does seem like that to me?

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- a few images of it

TL;DR I need to get a low-voltage wire down a wall through the attic, I don 't know much about wall construction, and can't get a hole from above. The only thing I want to avoid is cutting up plaster and re-plastering (other r esidents won't approve ;-)).

Any ideas, advice, help?

Regards.

Reply to
Humza
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In message , Humza writes

How old is the house, as that can give ideas about how it's constructed.

The ceiling in the top of the first attic picture appears to lath (thin strips of wood) and plaster over the top - you can see it squeezed through the gaps. This would suggest pre about 1960 - ish.

Anyway, you say the wall isn't hollow, in which case you have no realistic chance of running a cable down inside the wall.

A solid internal wall will normally be built of brick or some kind of concrete block and be solid all the way through. The timber you have drilled through (called a plate) is put on top of the wall to rest/fix the joists to. What seems to be plaster underneath is probably mortar.

Hollow walls are normally a wood frame with lath and plaster or plaste board. But there are normally horizontal pieces called noggins so you can't just drop a cable down the middle.

Where is the place you want to bring down the cable in relation to the network equipment location?

The only realistic option is to bring it through the ceiling and then chase out the wall and bury the cables - it wouldn't need much for a bit of network cable or to surface run some minitrunking down the wall and paint it. Done in corner or behind a cupboard or something like that it isn't that obvious. When the room is redecorated you can bury it.

Another thought.

By the looks of it you have laminate flooring. The should have a gap round the edge - hidden underneath that quarter round beading . You might be able to lift the beading and run cable in the little gap. Replacing the beading afterwards. Don't know if that would help with an alterntive run?

Reply to
Chris French

Modern house internal soil stack? Boxed in but with plenty of space around the soil pipe inside. Gets the vertical parts sorted but horizontal to where you want the ends is a bit harder...

A good place to come down inside almost all rooms is the corner behind the door. 15 mm or so trunking painted(*) or wall papered over will blend in very well. Choose corners above each other and you may be able to get down into all rooms from just a few places in the loft.

(*) Emulsion won't take nicely, not sure what you'd need to put on first to provide a key for emulsion.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Thanks Dave, I didn't make it too clear in the first message; I already have a plan of where I want and what I want to do, I'm just struggling to execute it. So:

- I need to get a few cables from the attic down through an internal wall, near the corner of a room (directly below attic).

- It isn't a thin plasterboard wall, I'm not sure what's in the wall or how it's constructed but there is a lot of plaster.

- I've located the wall from above and attempted to drill but I can't get through, see images in first message.

I've probably missed something because I'm sure it's possible to drop a cable through an existing wall without having to rip it up or cut into it.

Regards.

Reply to
Humza

I think you said the house was built in 1998? If so, it will likely be plasterboard or a solid material like breeze block or brick

It's possibly you're hitting timber frame (the wooden wall frame):

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IME, at best, it's going to be difficult to thread a cable down through a wall. If you're going to try you want to be clear there's no obstacle (such as nogging), and if it's an older house, lath and plaster rubble. Better to:

  • Chase into the wall - lot of mess, but IMO the best option, especially if you future proof with trunking. If I was starting from scratch it's what I'd do, and take the hit with plastering/decorating costs.
  • Surface mount - as somebody said upthread, the may get away with a reasonably neat solution in the corner behind a door. Drill up from the room into the attic after checking what you're drilling through. Apart from looking a bit tacky, making the opening is likely to cause more of a mess than you would think ;-)
  • Follow existing services/gaps - but be sure you're clear of other wiring. In one wall I followed the mains wiring, which is not the best plan for a number of reasons. I used cat6 and have had no problems (yet).
Reply to
RJH

You say the wall you are trying to come down is not hollow, tapping it shou ld establish if it is or not, if it sounds hollow it is if not it is solid. Are you sure the top of the wall you can see in the attic is wood and not brick, if wood then it should not be a problem to drill through and would s uggest the wall is a studded wall, ie. a timber framework with plasterboard lining either side and will sound hollow when tapped. A studded wall might allow you to get cables down part of it but you usually find horizontal cr oss-members called noggins will prevent you dropping your cables the full h eight. To get past these may require a few access holes in the plasterboard which will have to be patched up afterwards.

Useful places to drop cables from the attic are as Dave mentioned, pipe box es or airing cupboards. If your walls are solid then you have to decide wha t you are prepared to put up with. If you are happy to conceal it in trunki ng then a corner behind a door is fairly unobtrusive. If you want to comple tely conceal the cable/s then you will have to chase out channels in the pl aster and patch up afterwards. To minimise how much channeling you have to do door frames are useful. Architrave, the wood moulding around the frame, is usually just nailed on and prising off a vertical length will allow you to chip out some plaster for several Cat5e cables to be set in and conceale d once the architrave is re-nailed back in place. That leaves a short secti on of wall above the doorframe to the ceiling that can be channeled out and patched up or again a short length of trunking can be fairly unobtrusive. One other advantage of using door frames is that in two storey houses room doors are often directly above or below each other so if you need to go dow n two storeys this can really minimise the amount of visible cabling or ch anneling needed to be done.

Richard

Reply to
Tricky Dicky

In message , Tricky Dicky writes

Unless it is a drylined brick or block wall. This can sound like a stud wall - OP this has plasterboard normally stuck to a brick or block wall.

I interpreted the photos as drilling through wood and then hitting plaster/mortar.

Also the wall contains an old fireplace where the network gear is, it would be unusual to have a fireplace in a stud wall.

Reply to
Chris French

In message , Chris French writes

Another possibility for horizontal runs is to prise off the skirting board and put it behind there. But that will leave at least a little bit of damage (paint, were the fixings are etc.) and may lead to the skirting breaking

Reply to
Chris French

ave a plan of where I want and what I want to do, I'm just struggling to ex ecute it. So:

, near the corner of a room (directly below attic).

ow it's constructed but there is a lot of plaster.

through, see images in first message.

able through an existing wall without having to rip it up or cut into it.

An internal wall that's not plasterboard will be a single leaf of solid mas onry, almost certainly breeze blocks in 98. So there's no way to get inside it, it's solid. Hence the alternatives folk have suggested.

It's not particularly hard to bust a channel in breeze/plaster, but your fi lling skills need to be upto it afterwards.

If you decide to put trunking in a channel, fit your wire outside the trunk ing. That way you can in future get more total wire in a given trunking spa ce, and it's one less task when rewiring, no need to pull out the old stuff . Cat5 has various other uses beside networking, and always will.

There are various other ways to make life easier, but it looks like you don 't want to change the route.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

It could be a wall made from light weight blocks with a timber header plate on the top. Drilling into the top of that would seem very much like drilling through timber and into plaster.

If that is the case you will need to chase the wall and make good after.

See:

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Only if its a stud wall. Could you see any fixings down through the timber in the attic that would suggest the timber plate is nailed to the top of studs?

FYI, Stud wall construction:

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Reply to
John Rumm

I'd say just about 1950s, with my limited knowledge. It was renovated in 19

98 but most things stayed as they were including the old cabling which look s to be old lead sheath cable for lighting which was placed in some sort of odd thin metal conduit that's all rusted. There was some old grey twin and earth (didn't check if there was earth) cable from the old installation wh ich I presume was for sockets, looked even smaller than 2.5mm which the bui lders never bothered ripping out in some places.

I presume the walls remained the same. I can only see one hollow wall in th e house which I presume was added as an extra room in 1998.

A side view of a similar wall from a light switch:

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gXU.jpg - it looks like wood in the picture but it's some sort of mortar/pl aster/something mixture which I suspect is filled in through the whole wall and with trunking inside for other room's light switches.

Dang, I thought it was the case but I was still hopeful that I missed somet hing obvious.

Network equipment will be somewhere in the attic, that's not a problem. For it to actually work, I need a link to the modem which is stuck in a room, and I also want to get wires back down to a printer and workstation in that same room. Right now powerline ethernet is used for those, but it's pants.

Possible, but in that case, it's probably easier with the D Line trunking t hat I paid so much for, just wanted to avoid it. ;p

Yeah, too much effort for what it's worth, easier to bear the sight of exte rnal trunking than having to move all the furniture and chase into the wall . If the finish isn't perfect, other residents won't be too happy. ;-)

Right now I have a single Cat5e from the modem to my room where the network equipment currently is on with cable clips, it looks terrible and I want 3 Cat5e's to that room really.

Literally nothing goes down from the attic to the rooms apart from bundle o f lighting cables going down to the lights and switches. I could take a loo k at the light switches, from what I saw they used what can be lightly term ed as trunking to the light switches but I probably won't be able to fit an other cable through there. Pic:

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That's what it looks like to me.

That fireplace wall is an external wall, the one I was attempting was an in ternal.

Reply to
Humza

If it were just up to me, I'd rip out the wall and start aga> Only if its a stud wall. Could you see any fixings down through the

I couldn't see much, it doesn't appear to be a stud wall from what I have seen.

Reply to
Humza

Blocks might be hollow, square "figure of eight" things, sides about an inch thick. PITA when sinking a box for a socket as you end up with a hole with no or very little back.

Not allowed either, the insulation on Cat5 is not mains rated. That aside running network stuff in very close proximaty to mains isn't a good idea from the interfernce POV.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

There are various other options not yet mentioned, eg.

  1. Lift floorboards & run cable there.
  2. Run wire down an internal wall corner & plaster over it so that the corner's no longer square.

There are various others if you want to get creative too, eg

  1. Repurpose a TV coax for network & use a tv sender instead.
  2. Run cable in a skirting board groove (superglue it) and woodfill over it to make a new profile.
  3. If determined enough you could hide 8 core twisted pair in plain sight, but it doesn't look like you want to get into the issues that come with nonstandard feeds, creative routing etc.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

And if that isn't the "right" corner of the room it's not big deal to cable staple an single cable along the top of the skirting. As this is a modern house I guess it only has champered or 1/4 round skirting. Ogee is great for hiding cables in the two moulded grooves and along the top.

Another thought is to cut the bottom 25 mm off the skirting and put

25 mm trunking in the space, hopefully there will be enough deepth. Choose the trunking on depth rather than width. B-)
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

En el artículo , Humza escribió:

Poke a long screwdriver (gently! - wires, pipes above) up through the ceiling into the loft, then go up with a torch and look for it. You know exactly where to drill then.

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

Off the point, but who owns the house?

If there is still old lead sheathed cable in use , then it really should be checked (well in reality, rewired). The inner insulation on the lead cables was IIRC normally rubber. This perishes, and can just crumble away in fittings. We almost had afire in our old house because of old perished rubber insulation.

If there is just one or two cables, it might be neater just to staple the cable nearly to the top of the skirting and paint over it. Painting the trunking anyway will make it less obvious.

Do you really need 3 cables though for the network? A network switch and the end means just one cable (though if you are putting in trunking or chasing, it's that much more work if any really to put in more.

Reply to
Chris French

I assume that wifi or powerline won't do what you need the cabling for.

Reply to
Jeff Layman

I've got some cables encased in corrugated conduit shoved down a defunct blocked off chimney. There's some holes carefully [1] drilled near the top of that which exit [2] into the atic.

[1] carefully, meaning well - I haven't toppled the top of the 1930's stack going at it with my hunking SDS ... [2] no place for smoke, so if its a chimney that could be in the future made usable, er, no.
Reply to
Adrian Caspersz

No such th> I assume that wifi or powerline won't do what you need the cabling for.

As a networking guy (my business is dealing with servers, data centers and the like) anything less than gigabit is unacceptable for me. ;p

All of my storage is > Off the point, but who owns the house?

Well, I've made my way onto the deeds of the house but my father bought it. Those cables are not in use, if they were and I knew I'd have done it alre ady, our builders just didn't care enough to rip it out of the walls fully, they are stuck hanging in the attics out of the wall, I've tested it and n o voltage and it doesn't make its way to the consumer unit so all is good. ;-)

I'd prefer if > I've got some cables encased in corrugated conduit shoved down a defunct

That's how I plan to get the cables down to my room, my room has all the cu rrent endpoints for all the computers right now as it is, so they'll be sho ved up the chimney and terminated in the attic with a patch panel and then connected to a beefy switch. I'll also have to run a separate conduit to br ing power upstairs to the attic, there is already power but the electrician though it was a good idea to run a 13A plug socket off the 6A upstairs lig hting circuit. I don't see the logic in that but hey.

Reply to
Humza

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