How to Safely Run Electrical Wires in Your Home (and What You Should Never Do)
We’re moving towards a world where cords and cables are obsolete, even to power our homes , but we’re not quite there yet. No matter how hard you try, there are probably some pesky cables that spoil the neat, minimalist goodness of your interior design (or hide a ton of dustballs and lost Doritos under your desk). Even if you’re heavily leaning towards a wireless lifestyle with a keyboard and headphones, there’s probably some sort of cable bringing the Internet to your home, and power cords remain a necessity, even to power your wireless chargers. If you’re a gamer, you probably avoid wireless peripherals and the Internet like the lag-causing plague.
In theory, cleaning up the clutter of cables and cords seems like a surefire way to dramatically increase the aesthetic beauty of your media spaces and reach the peak of adulthood. Actually, it’s a lot of work and kind of a mysterious process when you’re dealing with finished walls. Here are a few approaches to this problem, as well as a few things you should never do.
Before you fish, make a plan
Before you start drilling into walls and catching cable , buy a nail finder that also detects power lines and pipes . Never assume that the previous homeowner (or builder or renovation contractor) followed the code or did something all at once (like spacing studs at regular spacing or attaching nail plates to electrical wiring). Instead, take some time to “map” what’s behind the walls where you plan to run the cable. This can be time consuming and tiring, but it will save you a lot of heartache in the long run.
Good Cabling Ways
The best time to run cables through walls is before they are erected, during the construction or renovation phase when the walls are exposed. At this point, it’s a relatively easy process because you can see everything. If you haven’t been able to anticipate the day you’ll want to hide your cables (or if you haven’t been involved in the construction or renovation of your current space), those beautifully finished walls are a problem. Here are a few approaches to running cables behind them:
- Spend them behind the plinth. A skirting board is a molding or trim that covers the seam where your walls meet the floor. Aside from the aesthetic work, it offers the perfect way to run cables: remove the baseboard, cut the drywall at the bottom of the wall (slightly narrower than the baseboard you put back in) and run the cables along the bottom. walls with the ability to see everything. When you’re done, replace the drywall, then cover the mess with new trim and it’ll be like nothing happened.
- Cut out the bevelled patch. If you need to run cable higher up the wall, you will need to cut a hole or three to complete the task. Cutting a so-called “viewing” hole with a bevelled edge will greatly facilitate the repair of the hole after the cable is laid. This involves cutting a hole at a 45 degree angle and then filling in the edges. The patch will snap into place and not fall through.
- Route the cable behind the crown molding. If your walls don’t have molding, you can run cables along the top of the wall without cutting through the drywall at all. Route the cable right up to the edge where the wall meets the ceiling, securing it with braces as you go (or using a cable management system). Then install the molding over it, leaving a small gap for the cables. In fact, there are some crown molding products for this specific purpose . What a time to be alive.
- Use the race track. If you don’t want to crash into your walls or deal with trim and stucco , another option is a canal. Cable tracks are plastic cable management systems that run along the outside of a wall. The cables go inside, and a paintable plastic cover is put on top of them to hide them. You can then paint the walkway to match the color of the trim or wall. It’s not as neat as catching cables through walls, but after painting it looks good.
- Use a TV connection kit/power bridge. Wall-mounted TVs guarantee an unsightly dangling power cord (and perhaps even trailing several feet to an ill-placed outlet in your living room). One solution is to install a recessed outlet behind the TV, but this requires electrical work and possibly an electrician. A TV connection kit (also known as a power bridge ) is a regulatory-compliant solution that allows you to hide your TV’s power cord without having to rewire your room.
Things You Should Never Do With Cables
Laying cables inside your walls gives the impression that a civilized adult is hiding in your house, but it’s not a job that requires a doctoral degree. do in construction. Anyone with basic DIY skills can run an ethernet cable through walls. However, there are a few simple mistakes, so here’s what you should never do when running cables through walls:
- Do not run cables through air ducts. Yes, you stand and look at your home’s AC ducts and think, “That’s brilliant! I’ll just run my cable here. Problem solved.” Except that the problem is not solved; instead, you can create a new problem. This is almost certainly not allowed by your local building codes, and ordinary cables cannot withstand extreme temperatures. Cable is also a fire hazard. You can run cables through so-called “plenum spaces “, but this will require a “plenum” cable, which costs about twice as much as a regular cable.
- Never catch power cords. The power cord of your TV or game console is a tempting target to run in the wall, but don’t even think about it. It’s a thousand percent against the code and obviously a fire hazard. If you burn down your house as a result, the insurance company will laugh at your attempts to collect compensation. Invest in a force bridge, as noted above, and you will be happy.
- Do not run coaxial cable near power lines. High voltage electrical lines can interfere with Cat 5 or Cat 6 cables or any communication cables. Keep them at least about a foot away, and if you have to cross a power line, try doing it at a 90 degree angle.
Some additional tips and tricks
When laying cables, you can try to use the unfinished spaces of your home to your advantage. If you have an unfinished basement, basement, or attic, consider running the cable up or down into those unfinished spaces and run them along the exposed beams or walls, then lift them up again. You may need a lot more line, but it’s a much quicker and easier job because you’ll minimize the “in-the-wall” work you’ll have to do, and catching line vertically is much easier than horizontal.
Also, don’t be afraid to “waste” the cable, that is, leaving excess cable in the wall or wherever you run it. This will leave you some slack to work with if you ever need to reconfigure the breadboard or cut the cable to fix or connect it.
Running cable inside your walls will clean up your space, and it has certain psychological benefits . Just make sure you do it right.