I want to run 4 lengths of Coax from my loft to the garage, to a PC that will be a TV server.
This is the design of house
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I'd rather the coax wasn't visible & was planning to run it inside the wall cavity from main loft to garage loft. I've not yet ventured into the main loft to see what this entails. How is the cavity normally topped off? Is it just with the plasterboard? In the garage loft I plan to drill a largeish hole in the breeze block & then somehow poke my way up to the main loft with a coathanger or other longish tool. As long as my alignment is right I should be OK....?
Being a modern house I suspect the cavity wall insulation will be your bigg est problem. If it is the foam board type attached to the inner wall with i nsulation holders there will be a small gap between the outer wall and the insulation. Making a hole in the block work in the garage loft will let you see what you have to play with. The outer and inner walls are not normally closed off at roof level although depending on what type of roof construct ion you have insulation and loft ventilators could cause obstructions. With a hole in the garage loft block work I would invest in a cable access kit which consists of a number of fibre glass link able rods push these up from the garage locate the end in the main loft attach wires and draw down into the garage. You can even get one which you can attach a LED so making it e asier to locate the end of the rod. The kits are not cheap £25 - £30. O ne other suggestion is to chase out the plaster in a room adjacent to the g arage loft then drill a suitably large hole to pass the cables through, but that leaves you the problem of making good the plaster work. An alternativ e is to use trunking instead of chasing the plaster work.
If you mean the house in the middle of the picture, yes it's possible, and I've done a similar thing quite often because sometimes blocks of flats have level changes along the row, and it's the way we would get the trunk cable through.
The only way to find out exactly how the cavity meets the top loft is to have a look. Every one is different. Modern mass-produced housing doesn't usually have anything elaborate though; just the opposite. The cavity might communicate directly to the loft.
I suggest you take out a whole half breeze block above the garage by drilling into the mortar all round it then chipping away at the the mortar. You will then be able to put it back afterwards. Alternatively smash it up with a cold chisel then buy a replacement block. Don't mess around drilling holes in the breeze; take a half or whole block out. Next, get one of those tiny LED torches and tape it firmly to the end of a flexible cane or plastic tube. Push this upward into the cavity as far as it will go. Don't expect an easy ride; the cavity will have ties across it and lumps of mortar.
Go into the main loft. You will need to put boards down across the glass fibre because you will have to lay flay on your front and wriggle forward. This is a very uncomfortable and unpleasant job. Pull the glass fibre (or whatever) away from the area under the edge of the roof and you should be able to see the light from the torch. This will give you an idea of how to proceed. You might decide to push up a second flexible rod at the side of the one with the torch and use it to draw a wire through, or you might lower a string down from the top (with a weight in it) until a helper in the lower loft can grab it.
If the cavity does not communicate with the loft it will be topped with bricks crosswise, or tiles, or a strip of plastic, or occasionally (loose unfixed) plasterboard. I'm afraid I have seen them where the builder has shoved cardboard down then slapped mortar in. You will have to break through that. Not easy, but it can be done.
It will be easier to draw your bunch of coaxes through from above than from below. It is worthwhile if you are using separate cables to make them up into a harness in advance, using insulating tape. Don't use ties because they snag. You can buy a cable that has five CT100 cables in one sheath. Always put spare cables in when you do a job like this.
Mortar the block back into place using a small bag of ready mixed mortar, not the quick setting stuff. This is because if there's a fire in the garage you don't want it getting into the loft.
I don't suppose there's a cupboard in the house upstairs that backs onto the garage?
You may find the inner leaf of the wall stops one or two courses short of the outer leaf, or that there's a ring beam bridging the two leaves, or that you've got cavity wall insulation (injected or more likely from the apparent age of the house, built-in slabs).
In short you need to get up there and have a look really ...
I remember having much fun as a kid trying to "catch" a weight on a string in the cavity to pull an aerial into my bedroom through a tiny drilled hole, as yours is a garage, I'd be tempted to take a whole brick/block out to make it easier.
I have been up there many a time, I have already run Cat5 from the garage & through the loft, untidily through the tiles, hence me wanting this job to be tidier'
This concerns me, not a lot of area to work up there, a survey is in order
Just the stairs & smallest bedroom, but that may be an easier solution, as that room is to become my study as the young 'un is moving into the bigger bedroom. Another option for locating the server is the airing cupboard top shelf directly under the loft, which just leaves me needing to run Cat5 to the garage (where the network switch lives). Wireless is not an option for HDTV, powerline possibly is. This would mean shorter cable runs to the server, but I would need to ventilate the cupboard to stop the server (A PC basically) overheating.
I'd be very wary of using powerline adaptors, as this kind of idea churns out mega interference and may, if the policies change, become illegal. some may say it already is froma spec point of view, but blind eyes ha ve been turned at the moment. Brian
One problem with these things that I don't see mentioned is that you'll share a network with a neighbour if they are on the same phase & use them as well. I briefly used them & had connectivity problems. I was with O2 Broadband at the time, but using an old Netgear sky router, with the default username & password. I decided to log on to the router to check things out, only to find it logged onto another brand of router - my next door neighbours.
Modern house with boxed in internal soil stack? Can make a very handy duct right through the entire house from ground floor level to loft. Get into the gropund/1st floor floor void then to the garage roof void through a simple horizontal hole lined witha bit of 40 mm waste pipe.
Just hope that the cavity insulation is self suporting when you make the hole, not polysytrene beads lacking in bonding agent. B-)
House built 1995, moved in 2004 to find no insulation in cavity. Had it doen soon after with a grant, it's that cotton fibre stuff, loads of it blowing about in the garage loft.
There's block of flats near where I am people are sticking 2" thick insulation blocks all over the outside of it. I don't know how they are going to finish it.
"You may find the inner leaf of the wall stops one or two courses short of the outer leaf, or that there's a ring beam bridging the two leaves, or that you've got cavity wall insulation (injected or more likely from the apparent age of the house, built-in slabs). "
Usually it's the other way round with wall plates put on the inner wall wit h the rafters or the sloping top member of the truss extending down at what ever angle the roof slopes over the outer wall. To be honest even claustrop hobia allowing I doubt you will see much down into the cavity from above. Y our best bet is to take a block out or make a reasonable size hole in the g arage loft.
It's the plastic, but completely inaccesible to me & child labour is tempting but out of the question. I also got my bearins wrong thinking it was wood topping the cavity which resulted in a load of plaster down the stairs & a couple of holes in the ceiling. I should be able to patch them up before she notices.
I think the opposite will be the answer, I'm thinking take out a block in the garage as high up as possible & then poking upwards with a length of copper pipe to break through the plastic topping?
With a section of the block cut out for the cables & then silicone around them?
Yes, well cut the end of the tube at a strong diagonal so it cuts through the plastic easier. Just because you're poking up from below doesn't mean you have to drag the cables the same way. Make a little hole in the tube near the end. Attach a strong draw wire to this (blue rope for pulling thro' ducts is good). Retract the tube. Use the draw wire to pull the cables down from above. Be prepared for snags.
Just put the cables in, position them roughly in one bottom corner of the hole (hold them with nails if you like) chip a bottom corner off the block (a triangular bit about 1.5" x 1.5") to accommodate the cables, lay the mortar bed over the cables and all the way along the bottom surface of the hole, butter the block as best as you can, push it in, push more mortar in all round. No need for silicone. Probably not fireproof anyway.
You aren't obliged to fill the hole with a block. You could use bricks if it's easier. Quite honestly if you think you might want future access I'd say two layers of plasterboard firmly nailed over the hole would do. (Masonry nails with washers; wear goggles; nail heads are nasty things to have embedded in your retina, specially on Saturday nights when A & E is full of fighting men).
Somewhat OT. I was looking at an old mansion house today tracing some RG213 coax from an aerial on the roof. The installer had not been allowed to run it down the outside wall and had eventually hit on running it down inside a 6" dia lead drainpipe. It had been there for
10-15 years and the coax still looked OK. Not measured it yet though. a devious route and double screened as well!!
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