CONCEALING SPEAKER WIRE (CONTINUED)
ABOUT EXTERIOR WALLS
Concealing wires in exterior walls is more complex, since the walls are stuffed with insulation to protect the house from the heat and cold outside. Moreover, our national building code requires that a horizontal stud placed between the vertical studs break the hollow wall space in exterior walls. 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.
PLANNING THE SPEAKER WIRE ROUTE
Start by examining all the possible routes you might take to run the speaker wire from the speaker to the home theater system. Use a stud sensor or other device to locate the internal structure of the wall. You will want to avoid all studs or joists. Figure 6 shows a typical wire run from the speaker location in the ceiling, across the attic, then down through a top plate (i.e., the horizontal
Figure 6. Running speaker wire from a ceiling speaker to a home theater system location.
Speaker Location
Find all the locations of your exist- ing electrical, phone, and TV wir- ing, and then plan the speaker wire route to avoid them. Crossing wire paths is acceptable, but 60 Hz hum may be induced in the reproduced
audio, if speaker wire is run paral- lel to electrical wire for more than
a few feet. If possible, try to keep speaker wire away from parallel power cables by at least 3 feet.
To find exactly where an electrical cable is routed, try inspecting the inside of the wall by turn- ing off the breaker for a particular power outlet or switch, removing the cover plate and switch or receptacle, and then shining a penlight into the wall. If you have access to an attic or basement space, you can quickly see which part of the wall space is free of obstructions, as shown in Figure 7.
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