Run Speaker Wire Through Wall

If you want truly invisible yet permanent wire placement shy of cutting holes and installing wires through walls then flat speaker wire may be the way to go.

Run speaker wire through wall. If you need to go through an air duct be sure the the wire is plenum or cmp rated. Turn off the power. Use your stud finder to check the whole wall cavity for obstacles like blocking and abandoned headers. Run electrical cable through walls and across ceilings without tearing them apart.

Always turn off the breakers in your electrical box before you begin to reduce the chance of an electrical shock should you accidently cut or drill into existing wiring. One hole goes below the wall plate and the other goes below the in wall. Extend the fish stick so that it protrudes out of both the top and bottom holes and you can tape it to the wall temporarily. You don t want to find out the hard way that you should have fished your wire one stud cavity to the left or right.

Select proper wire or cable. Now install the wire in the channel and put. Routing wire through an unfinished basement. A decent stud finder is a must have for every wire fishing job but don t throw it back in your pouch after you ve located the studs.

The correct wire for running through the walls will say cm or cmr on it. Use a fish tape or a fish stick a rigid pole for pulling wires when you need to pass them through the wall plates to the floor above or below the one on which you re working. Learn how with this video. Be sure to leave enough slack on both ends to make connections.

Feed cables through the holes. Do not use your cruddy radio shack copper and aluminum wire this is not meant for in wall use. A peel away backing exposes the industrial strength adhesive side. Support cables at 4 1 2 inch intervals with appropriate staples or clamps.

Carefully push the top low voltage box into the wall cavity just enough that you can easily access the tube from the bottom hole. Speaker wire should be 16 gauge stranded and 2 conductor with one red and one black wire. In the example shown here you cut two holes in the wall one for a wall plate and another for an in wall speaker. Push the fish stick up through the tube and out of the top low voltage box.

Next drill two holes in your wall s bottom plate which is accessible from the unfinished basement ceiling. While running it through a basement drill two holes on the wall ceiling and drill two other holes on the mounting plate for running the wire through the wall and connecting to the speaker. Make sure you use ul rated in wall wiring that meets local building and fire codes including cm cmr or cmp for computer networking and cl2 or cl3 for speakers.