Running speaker wire in house - drilling joists

[NC_Lane]

Hi Guys,

Need to run some speaker wire and for our new place before the plaster goes in.

I need to run them through the roof joists on the ground floor.
Would anyone be able to confirm it is ok to do so, and also that this is the corect place to drill? I have found quite a lot of places on the joists where there appears to be a circle punched out.

[pistolpete]

Use a hammer to knock out the circles, they are there for running cables/pipes. Try not to run the speaker wires too close to any power cables, if you can't aviod it, run the, in some flexible conduit.

[NC_Lane]

Thanks Mate

[SB076]

I just drilled through, was lucky the carpenter turned up, when I was there, asked what I was doing so I told him, he said you are fine. I did keep the wiring away from everything else and kept the hole size small (from memory 8mm - just to pass the wires through) Than I took photos of where I positioned the plates and once I had hand over I went around with a magnet and punched holes in the wall to get to the wires and secure the front face.

[NC_Lane]

Thanks Mate

[xisled]

If it is a new house, why not get the electrician to run the wires..

[SB076]

Originally Posted by xisled

If it is a new house, why not get the electrician to run the wires..

Cost, I couldnt just approach the electrician I would have to go through the builder, from memory (dont quote me) the builder wanted $1600 to do 4 rooms, it cost me $200 (parts) and 2 - 3 hours.

[xisled]

I thought cables needed to be laid by a registered electrician as it is electrical work. I could be wrong.

Will the builder let you lay them yourself since they the company who will sign off on the warranty?

[SB076]

Originally Posted by xisled

I thought cables needed to be laid by a registered electrician as it is electrical work. I could be wrong.

Will teh builder let you lay them yourself?

I did get the builders permission, I wouldn't touch anything electrical except speaker wires (pretty straight forward) More of a hassle for the builder to arrange (hence the high cost) So think it was a win win

House had not been handed over (was just prior to plastering) so technically the building is owned and controlled by the builder not me

[xf84]

You don't need to be an electrician to put in speaker cable. I just did my place (and went stupid), ran Cat6, 14AWG 4 Core speaker cable and alarm wiring.

The rule for comms near power is 50mm of separation in cavity's, going through noggin must have own hole obviusly, and must be 150mm from terminations (ie power points). I used same rule for my audio.

Cos my place is 2 storey had to get it done as it was my only chance. I spoke with the sparky to make sure he was happy for me to do it.

Rule of thumb is you can drill through noggins up to the size of the width of the material - but don't make the hole bigger than you need. If it starts getting too full in one noggin, move to another and go sideways.

I'm running Sonos amps, everything comes back to under the stairs. I've got impedance matching volume controls for each room. I left a loop in each wall for each room to connect the volumes after handover, then ran to ceiling for speakers.





Then I just asked the plasterer to poke em all through. I've got a 19" rack going in there



Looks excessive, but I've future proofed the house. Every room has 3 or 4 Cat6 runs/coax plus around the house for POE cameras later on etc. I'll start with 2 or 3 Sonos amps and slowly expand (good thing about the impedance matching volume controls you can run multiple speakers off the one amp).

On a side note, check out Sonos for your system - very cool, but pricey (control it all from your phone!!)

BTW, I am a comms tech with OCL - but as long as you do things to spec you'll be fine.

[Danny]

And try to drill as close to the middle of the joist as you can. Too high or too low can weaken their tensile or compressive strength. My plumbers and sparkies ask me this question a lot, and it's perfectly okay. Make sure your hole is only as big as what you require and that it's not too large.

For my jobs, I myself only ever use Posi Struts rather than the hyjoist in the OP, as they're a proper truss style joist with a top plate and bottom plate with steel braces cris crossing in between, so there's plenty of room for running services.