Installation Fundamentals

Installation

Fundamentals

Running the Speaker Wire in New Construction

If you have doubts about whether you are capable of installing a Niles ceiling mount loudspeakers, consult a Niles dealer or professional installer. They have special tools, techniques, and experience to make the impossible possible. The installer can provide you with an estimate before any work is done.

Scheduling and Preparation

Plan to schedule the speaker wiring after the electrical wiring is finished. That way you can avoid wire routes which could potentially induce hum over the speaker wire. The basic rules are:

•Never run speaker wire through the same hole as an electrical cable.

•Never run speaker wire into the same J-box as electrical cable.

•Avoid running the speaker wire beside the electrical cable. Keep your speaker cable at a distance of at least 18"-22" from any electrical power cable.

Figure 5

Side-by-side wiring is unavoidable in par- ticular spots in every house, just move the speaker wire route away as soon as possi- ble. If construction forces a side by side run for more than ten feet, install metal conduit or shielded speaker wire. Low- voltage wires such as doorbells, inter- coms, telephone, security, or television cannot cause interference or hum on your speaker wires, so you can safely run all of them at the same time, through the same holes, side-by-side.

Before you drill any holes, mount the speaker brackets in the desired speaker locations and mount p-rings or open backed J-boxes where the in-wall volume controls and stereo equipment will be.

Safety First!

Wear gloves, safety goggles and head pro- tection when drilling. Avoid nails, they ruin bits and they can create injury. Pay particu- lar care when using “hole-hogs” and other powerful electric drills; the torque of the drill when suddenly stopped by a nail can break the wrist of a strong man.

Drilling

Use a bit that is large enough for the wires you plan to run. An auger bit is the pre- ferred bit for rough-in wiring. It will actu- ally pull itself through the wood, so that the drill motor, not you, does most of the work. You may be drilling a lot of holes, so this is an important consideration.

Always drill the holes in the center of the stud. If you have to notch the stud or drill the hole closer than one inch from the edge of the stud, protect the wire with a nail plate (See Figure 5).

When drilling holes in ceiling joists drill in the center of the joists and try to locate the hole near the end of the joist. DO NOT drill through a “gluelam” or any load bearing beam without the direction of your contractor.

Try to line the holes up perfectly, because it makes pulling the wire much easier. A good technique is to snap a chalk line across the face of the studs or against the bottom of the ceiling joists. Then work backward so that you can always see the holes you have already drilled. Paying careful attention to this will save you a lot of time later on!

Pulling the Cable

Pull the cable in sections (from the stereo to the volume control, from the volume control to the speaker). Start with the longest sections and use left over wire to complete the short sections. If you plan to pull many rooms at the same time through a central route, walk off the distance to each destination, add a generous fudge factor for turns and other obstacles, then cut off each section so that you have a bundle of wires you can pull at once.

Whenever you run the wire further than four and one half feet from a hole in a stud or joist (open attic space, going up walls, etc.), fasten the wire to the joists or studs using cable clamps or appropriately sized wire staples. The wire should not have large sags in it, nor should it be too tight. Try to protect the wire from being stepped on in attics or other unfinished crawl spaces. There are guard strips, raceways and conduits which can be used to protect the cable. Consult the local building code for special requirements in your area.

Concealing Speaker Wire

in Existing Walls

This is actually a fairly simple task if you restrict your choice of speaker locations and wire routes to the interior walls or ceilings of your home. Interior walls in almost all North American residences are hollow, so that it is easy to flush mount speakers into them and route new speaker cable around the house. What you see

when you look at the painted wall board, plaster, or paneling is only the skin of the wall. Behind the skin is the skeleton; two- by-four wood or metal “studs” running vertically from the floor to the ceiling in walls and two-by-six or larger “joists” run- ning horizontally in the ceilings and floors. In between the studs and the joists is the space for the wiring and plumbing of your home.

Exterior walls are different. They must insulate the house from the heat and cold outside, so they are stuffed with insulation. The national building code requires that the hollow wall space in exterior walls be broken by a horizontal stud placed between the vertical studs. This “fire blocking” makes it very difficult to retrofit long lengths of wire. In some areas of the country the exterior walls are constructed of solid masonry, and have no hollow space for speakers or wires.

Start by examining all the possible routes you might take to run the speaker wire from the speaker to the volume control and back to the stereo. Use a stud sensor or other device to locate the internal struc- ture of the wall. You want to avoid all studs or joists. A typical route would be: from the speaker location in the ceiling, across the attic, then down through a top plate (the horizontal 2x4 or 2x6 laid across the vertical studs) to the volume control location, back up to the attic, across the attic, and finally down another wall plate to a J-Box in the wall behind the stereo system itself (See Figure 6).

Identify where all of your electrical, phone, and TV wiring is likely to be and plan to route around it all. You can acci- dentally induce 60Hz hum on your speak- ers if you run your speaker wire right beside electrical wire for more than a few feet. Try to keep speaker wire running par-

Installation Fundamentals

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