STEP 1 : WALLBOARD
SURGERY
You won’t regret heeding the old carpenter’s
maxim, “measure twice, cut once”Once you’ve mapped out your network on paper, you
should examine the locations you’ll be routing cable
to. Although you’ll want to limit the number of times
you enter your crawl space or attic, it’s crucial that you
conduct a scouting expedition in one or both places
before you start cutting holes in your walls.
In many homes, the declining angle of the roof
might make the top of an outside wall inaccessible
from the attic. If you have a crawl space—or better yet,
a basement—beneath the house, you might be able
to run the cable up through the fl oor, instead. In other
situations, a two-by-four brace or fi reblock midway up
the wall could render it impossible for you to snake cable
down to an electrical box. You can use an electronic
stud fi nder to quickly identify this potential problem.
Insulation in outside walls can also make things
diffi cult—particularly if it’s the blown-in type.
Make sure you have adequate clearance from
electrical cables, and be aware of what’s on the other
side of the wall, too. You don’t want to cut a hole in the
wall only to discover a water pipe blocking your way—or
worse, spouting water from a fresh wound.
Lastly, identify a landmark in your home—such as a
chimney, a bathroom vent, a heat duct, etc.—that will
help you orient your location from within your attic,
basement, or crawl space. You’ll use that landmark when
deciding where to cut holes.You can use an electronic stud finder
(or the old two-knuckle tapping trick)
to locate the two-by-four studs in
the wall. The stud finder will beep
when it detects the edge of the stud;
keep dragging until the tone stops to
identify the other edge of the stud.
Place your Ethernet jack at the same
floor height as your electrical outlets,
but keep the cable a few inches from
any electrical cable inside the wall.When you buy your electrical
boxes, pick up a few of these paper
templates. Tack the template to the
wall and trace an outline for the hole
you’re going to cut to accommodate
the electrical box. (If you can’t find
the paper templates, you can trace an
outline around the box itself.)Drill a pilot hole in one of the
lines that you’ve drawn. Insert the
wallboard saw into the hole and
slowly cut around the perimeter.
Don’t insert the electrical box until
you’ve pulled your cable through
the hole.STEP 2 : PULLING CABLES
And now the real dirty work begins
If you’re fortunate enough to have a basement or fi rst-
story garage beneath your living quarters, you won’t need
to enter your attic at all. Regardless, when you’re running
cable, start at one end, then run it to the other. Whatever
you do, don’t start in the basement or attic. Don’t forget
to bring your measuring tape, drill, drill bits, and your
measurements. After you fi nish the fi rst run, go ahead and
pull wires to the rest of the rooms you want to connect.Once the cable is visible in your
basement, you can begin pulling it
from the hole toward your home run.
Take care not to bend or crimp the
cable. If you must staple the cable,
use plastic nonmetallic staples and
leave the cable loose within the staple.
If you crimp or compress the cable,
you’ll seriously impair its ability to
transmit data. Label or tag each end of
the cable before you pull it up into the
other hole, so you’ll know where it’s
going to and coming from.If your home
doesn’t have
modern
gypsum boards
to cut holes
in, you can
drill down at
a very shallow
diagonal angle,
then mount
a wall-mount
Ethernet jack
on the wall.In this example, we pushed a fish rod
down into the basement to help find
the hole. Once we’ve located the hole,
and made sure it’s clear, we attached a
cable to the fish rod using 20-ga metal
wire, and pushed the looped end of the
cable back down into the hole. If you’re
drilling down from an attic, you’ll need
to drop your fish tape down the hole
between the insulation and the wall,
then have a helper tie the end of the
cable to that, and then pull the fish tape
and cable back up.A
B
C
A
B
C
JUNE 2005 MA XIMUMPC 29
Fish tape