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Ret
Ret • mastodon (AP)

Deployed my trick for running cables down stud walls quite successfully again.

Find the horizontal noggin, inwards-angle-cut a small rectangle of plasterboard out about 5cm above it (such that it forms a “plug” that can be re-inserted afterwards).

Use a small (16mm-ish), long spade bit to drill a hole downwards through the noggin for your cables.

Use rods and rope to get down from the loft above to the noggin, and then down to the faceplate.

Replace the plug and plaster over like nothing happened. Easy.

Two holes in a plasterboard wall. A square one at the bottom to accommodate a faceplate. A smaller rectangular one further up to allow drilling through the wooden noggin in the wall.
A close up of some cables running inside the wall.
A plastic pattress box in the wall now, with some taped up CAT6 cables poking out
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
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Ret
Ret • mastodon (AP)
Bonus tip (learned from experience) - definitely always finish all the cabling/testing/terminating etc first. If you plaster the wall then immediately start fiddling with the cables at the faceplate, they can disturb the plaster from behind and ruin your finish before it sets...
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Pippin
Pippin friendica
As someone who's been investigating his new(ish) house and planning a bunch of new cable runs and stuff recently, thank you for the hints :)
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Ret
Ret • mastodon (AP)
no problem! My general recommendation is for upstairs drops, try to get all the cables into the loft and do this trick. Downstairs, I found it much easier to just buy outdoor grade CAT6 and run cables outside.
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Pippin
Pippin friendica
@Ret Ah, that makes sense! I think I know how to get to the TV area without going outdoors, but the corner of the living room my dad's PC is in is probably going to want an outdoor cable down the side of the house from the loft. The alternative is likely taking up floorboards across the whole of upstairs! I'm used to a house with a suspended floor downstairs which made wiring especially easy on the ground floor - this one has a concrete downstairs floor though so it's all different!
@Ret
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Ret
Ret • mastodon (AP)
@pippin see the floorboards thing isn’t even an option upstairs here. This house (built 2015) has composite boards with fireproof sealant between them in place of floorboards upstairs. Very tough.
@Pippin
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Pippin
Pippin friendica
@Ret Back in the 1990s when my dad did the loft conversion at our old house he had to put in tounge-and-groove floorboards and hardboard over the top for fire resistance which certainly made it harder to get at anything above the upstairs ceiling, but yours sounds even more impenetrable.
@Ret
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