Home Theater Speaker wire hiding??

[Blk03SVTCobra]

Anyone ever run the wires for a home theater speaker through the wall and back to the receiver??

I need to do this before my wife kills me (said I'd do it back when I bought the damn thing last year).

Suggestions?

 

[mach1gsxr]

Yup, through the wall into the attic and back down the other wall. Not fun.

I did the same as you since I don't plan on being at my current house for too much longer and see it as a waste of my time.

 

[sunburned]

Good luck Sean. There are wires all over my bedroom from my surround sound and running the cable across the room. I can't run the wires through the ceiling and walls because I'm in the basement with no access to anything.

I'd start in the attic and drop the wires down the walls. Do everything down instead of trying to go up. If you have a 2nd floor above the room, I'd say you are sunk and should try to hide the wires behind baseboards or under the carpet.

 

[FISHTAIL]

You can also cut small channels into the drywall and cover it with spackle if you are feeling lazy.

 

[ScottinSSMD]

Monster cable. Buy online for a fraction of stores. The professional that I am, buried in walls is the best approach. Run to speaker jacks at the wall behind the reciever is also the best way, too.

edit: If the room can handle a crown mold, this would save you tons of cutting, patching and painting.

 

[ByeOfficer]

Attic is your only hope and some "fishwire" so you can grab ahold of it later. I thought about this when the addition was being put on and ran the speaker wire before the drywall went up.

 

[Blk03SVTCobra]

Probably should have mentioned this up front: we own a two-story townhome with no basement. We have an attic, but it is above the second floor, and the home theater is on the first floor.

Only the roof, front and rear of the house touch the outside air. The rest of the walls are a buffer between us and the next house over.

I will say this about the walls between units too: you can not hear a PEEP out of any neighbor, ever. I had some very loud renters live next door for a while, and never heard a darn thing until I stepped out of the house or had a window open. I'm thinking this is a bad thing, since it probably means that there is a lot of insulation between us and the next unit, which would make fishing wires harder.

I'm starting to think that the best idea would be as follows:
1) Cut 2" diameter hole at each speaker location
2) Cut 2" diameter hole directly above baseboard
3) Fish wire from top hole to bottom hole
4) Patch/plug wall at each hole
5) Paint wire same color as baseboard where it goes over baseboard in inconspicuous area
6) Run remainder of wire under baseboard around room and back to receiver

I suppose another good method would be replace 2) above with:
2) Drill 1" hole at very bottom of baseboard at each speaker location

Thoughts?

 

[F8LBITEva]

Home depot sells paintable conduit with double sided tape. Its rounded with a slit down the middle and you run it along your baseboard, it attaches with the double sided tape and you can paint over it and you'll never know its there.

 

[Hockeyman48]

You should be able to stuff speaker wire between base moulding and carpet. I use a plastic putty blade. Also ,If you dont mind the look of a single gang cover on the wall at your speaker locations use them on top of the hole you drilled to fish up speaker wire. They make them with a single hole about 1/2 inch diam. for wire.You can also remove baseboard moulding if its higher than the base wall 2x4 and drill hole behind it to fish speaker wire down. No patching w/ above methods. Use utility knife to score moulding at top so paint does'nt peel w/ moulding off of wall. Hope this helps

 

[akula51]

If you get the Monster XPS in Navajo White, it's ready to paint... I had to do this in our last house and I said F it, cut the crap out of the ceiling (since I had to put up 4 brackets for 7.1 surrounds), and ended up redrywalling the ceiling right over top of the old stuff. There were some other stains and what-not that we got rid of at the same time... If you don't mind losing 1/2" of your room at the ceiling, it's always an option...

Ack

 

[kens03cobra]

Leave enough slack so she can jump rope, then tell her she should lose some weight :banana::banana:


wires will be the least of your worries after that :lol::lol:

j/k

I went getto and stuffed mine under the molding and the carpet, came out OK, and you cant tell unless you are really looking.

In the wall is the way to go, fish tape and beer FTW!!!!


Ken

:beer::beer:

 

[PSUCOBRA96]

remove teh baseboard and run in underneath as there is normally a gap between the floor and the drywall, run that to the t.v., cut the holes where the speakers are gonna be and drop it straight down with a counter weight and then cut a small hole at the bottom to pull it through that outta work for ya....btw it won't be fun lol

 

[EBBS_03_Cobra]

The basement at my house has a drop ceiling, and let me say that I'm soooo thankful it does! My brother and I redid the speaker locations over winter break, and did the same thing as before. Feed the wires into the molding, then up to the ceiling, across the ceiling, and then fished them into a seam in the panelling. Only problem we ran into was how to hide the huge wire from the home theater system to the sub woofer? We put the sub behind the couch so you can feel it more, but now have this thick wire running through the middle of the floor.

 

[blowns281]

damn if you were closer, I use to do jack work all the time, now I only do outside work, well anyway at each speaker location place a wall jack, you can use a hole saw to make it easier, then directly bellow it pull out the base board and make another hole as high as you can with out it showing, using a fish tape or a string with a weight on it, drop it down to the lower one, use a coat hanger at the bottom to pull it out, you can run the wire under the baseboard the rest of the way, if you have to take it across a doorway either run it under the carpet or the molding, only wires that will be visible will behind the reciever, you can also fish that wall if your box is mounted high, hope this helps

 

[ScottinSSMD]

Hold on Sean! Don't plan to just cut the two holes. You WILL run into fire stop wood blocking at around 48" high off the floor. If your place was built after 82 this will most likely be there. Use a stud finder to track this.

 

[blowns281]

^^ only on the walls touching the other townhouse, on those walls he can mount the jacks lower

 

[Rick James]

I ran wire to all my speakers pretty easily. I have a projector system in my basement, and all the AV equipment is located on the opposite side of the room from the screen and front channel speakers. I just cut holes in the ceiling where my speakers would be and fished wire over to them. Depending on how your joists are run, this could be easy or a minor PITA. I then just mounted speaker plates over those holes and ran a short jumper to eachspeaker. Ran all 5 (front and rear) in like 3 hrs. Only needed to patch one hole. :beer:

 

[playwithmysnake]

WHATEVER YOU DO MAKE A TEST HOLE before u go crazy make sure u see whats behind that drywall.do a small pilot hole and a flashlight to see ,,

 

[FISHTAIL]

Hold on Sean! Don't plan to just cut the two holes. You WILL run into fire stop wood blocking at around 48" high off the floor. If your place was built after 82 this will most likely be there. Use a stud finder to track this.

+1, but only if it's an outside wall. Don't think interior walls generally have the fire breaks. This is a good place to bury the wire in the drywall with spackle, unless you want to cut up enough to get a hole punched in the fire break.

 

[N2DAMYSTIC]

Hold on Sean! Don't plan to just cut the two holes. You WILL run into fire stop wood blocking at around 48" high off the floor. If your place was built after 82 this will most likely be there. Use a stud finder to track this.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Did not know of the actual height but this could definately be an issue. Even if your place is older than 82 if one of the walls backs up to your kitchen there could be blocking there as well for cabinet mounting. Although a bit more work Crown Moulding is a great answer to this problem. You will still have to cut an area of sheetrock from the floor to the ceiling but at least it will only be 1 area that you have to patch. Then fish it around from there and down the wall to your jack location.