Home audio, video, & data wiring: How are you doing it?

[BadMouth]

As a renter of my current house I drilled a bunch of holes in the hardwood floors to poke whatever cables I wanted into each room.
(Landlord said he didn't care how big of holes or how many...wish he hadn't said that now)

Now as the owner of the house, I want to repair the hardwood floors and find other methods. 

I had a powered amp/splitter for antenna tv, HDMI, and a gigabit switch for Ethernet.
I liked having HDMI distributed.  I live by myself, so I can get away with only renting one cable box (and only during football season because I'm cheap).
It's also nice to be able to watch something while moving around various rooms in the house.
I have three RF remotes around the house with an IR blaster in the living room.

I'm currently leaning toward conduit large enough to pass an HDMI cable going to a blank box.

Anyways, I figure the people here are probably more wired than the average joe.
So how are you set up?

[yotsuya]

As a renter of my current house I drilled a bunch of holes in the hardwood floors to poke whatever cables I wanted into each room.
(Landlord said he didn't care how big of holes or how many...wish he hadn't said that now)

Now as the owner of the house, I want to repair the hardwood floors and find other methods. 

I had a powered amp/splitter for antenna tv, HDMI, and a gigabit switch for Ethernet.
I liked having HDMI distributed.  I live by myself, so I can get away with only renting one cable box (and only during football season because I'm cheap).
It's also nice to be able to watch something while moving around various rooms in the house.
I have three RF remotes around the house with an IR blaster in the living room.

I'm currently leaning toward conduit large enough to pass an HDMI cable going to a blank box.

Anyways, I figure the people here are probably more wired than the average joe.
So how are you set up?

I have a single story home, so it's easy. I run everything through the attic, making drops down into closets, and putting wall ports in by making pass-throughs from one side of the closet wall to the other. There's only one instance where I had to use raceway coming down from the ceiling, but it's in our home gym and so it's not a big deal. When I remodeled my family room, I was able to cut up the walls to run cables before I refinished them, so those are completely hidden.

[BadMouth]

I was looking at large conduit, but I'd have to cut open the walls.
Now I'm leaning toward low voltage open back boxes and a hole in the bottom plate drilled from underneath.
(and the wires just loose inside the wall, assuming my interior walls aren't insulated)

Half assed, but probably easier to run wires and will look the same in the end.
Paired with a bulk wire face plate, it should be just as functional as a 3/4" hole in the floor.

[eds1275]

My house is 2 story, the lower level being half in ground. When I moved in, it was unfinished down there. Looking up, you could see the rows of nails where the wall baseplates were attached, so it was easy to know where to drill. I installed a Leviton Structured Media box in one room where the telephone and cable was connected to the house, and from there just ran wires to everything. Everything just goes to the big patch bay for coax, ethernet, and telephone lines and I can move stuff around if I need to. Which I don't because I bought a box big enough for everything. But once I put in the new shed, I may need to take say the guest room off the system to run stuff out there. All the cables just run to the open back low voltage boxes and are zap strapped together and latched on to whatever stud was closest although I feel that part wasn't nessasary.

[jdbailey1206]

I wish I was as structured as eds.  I have simply ran coax, phone and ethernet from the spot where they originate to each room.  Mind you I have ran everything from my basement to a wall port to each room.  I only have one phone port because we run a dsl modem for our internet (Welcome to farm country). 

I would recommend doing wall plates and not worry about conduit.  For as much as technology changes it is easier to use these in bulk and run everything at least 2" away from any electrical and doing quick wall fishes to wall plates. 

As for your floor 'problem' I would just use the same size dowel from the Depot and stain it the same color as the floor and call it good.  The holes are behind the tv so no one will notice. 

[eds1275]

As for your floor 'problem' I would just use the same size dowel from the Depot and stain it the same color as the floor and call it good.  The holes are behind the tv so no one will notice.

Another option would be to lay down some tile over the flooring to make sort of an area for the tv and accessories.

[BadMouth]

....can't put a tile area below the tv in every room.... 

I was figuring on making some type of dowel to pound in, but wonder why the professionally done floors I've seen have light colored filler used instead.
You'd think they'd at least match it to the shade of the floor.  Haven't dug that far into it yet.  I can rob planks from the closets if need be.

[nitrogen_widget]

....can't put a tile area below the tv in every room.... 

I was figuring on making some type of dowel to pound in, but wonder why the professionally done floors I've seen have light colored filler used instead.
You'd think they'd at least match it to the shade of the floor.  Haven't dug that far into it yet.  I can rob planks from the closets if need be.

did you use a hole saw or a standard bit where you ran the bit up & down the sides of the hole to make it bigger & somewhat oval?
I've done the latter in apartments

Find the same type of hardwood you have on your floor in the lumber store, buy a hole saw slightly bigger (if you used a standard bit) or the same size of the hole you made in your floor if you used a hole saw.
drill out the plug from the sacrificial board, slather some glue on the sides & gently tap it into the hole with a rubber mallet.
sand it smooth after the glue dries & stain it best you can to match the rest of the floor.

If you want and depending on your climate, go down to the basement & fill in any space with caulk or great stuff to keep cold air from infiltrating the room from the basement.

I gutted my house.
Full renovation so my walls were bare so I have coax,phone, ethernet in every room upstairs on each side of those rooms.
Plus I ran 2" conduit from the basement up to the crawl space above the 2nd floor on both sides of the house should I even need to get some wire up there easily.
One of my oldest friends is an electrician so he made sure it was all overkill.

[ark_ader]

Well it depends on your home wiring, but I use powerline for data and audio, and it works extremely well.  Also I can forgough the audio and use USB instead.

They are pretty cheap and have follow though plug for more power devices.  I got mine for $33 but they seem to fluctuat.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009WG6LLA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Dawgz Rule]

I have a single story home and used a flexible drill bit to drill through to the basement from within the wall.  Wall box and face plate finished the job.    You can also route cable  behind the baseboard molding.

[jdbailey1206]

I have a single story home and used a flexible drill bit to drill through to the basement from within the wall.  Wall box and face plate finished the job.    You can also route cable  behind the baseboard molding.

Pulling carpet is never a problem either.  You have tack strips so you can pull up the carpet at the border of the room and hammer it back down after you have run your coax around. 

One trick I learned from my days installing for a satellite company was you can always tell where the wall is by looking up and seeing where the electrical goes up (for plugs).  Or in Yots case where the electrical goes down.

[BadMouth]

Thanks for all the input!

Bought some open back low voltage old work "boxes" and some bulk cable face plates, along with some recessed outlets for the TVs.  (I didn't care for any of the combined setups)
I didn't want the extra HDMI connection at the wall plate and the bulk cable face plate keeps it flatter against the wall anyway.




I'm gonna keep the holes in the floor for a couple places that it's less of an eyesore than a plate on the wall. 

[dkersten]

Although I did this professionally for nearly a decade, I don't really have much advice on how to run wires as every situation is different.  Just be prepared to drill holes through things you can't see, and make sure you have a good fish tape to help pull wires.  Try to stay in front of any insulation you encounter.  Also, if you are pulling more than one wire from point A to point B and you might want something different (or to replace a cable later if one goes bad), run some heavy duty string or even an extra 16-18 ga wire along with the other wires.  That way you can just attach your fish tape to the extra wire or string later and pull it through, attach your new cable and just pull it right back without all the headache of fishing through a hole you can't see.

Those wall plates can be painted to match, which will help blend them in.

The "open back" rings are great for anything low voltage.

The only other thing I might mention would be to look into Baluns for video or audio over long distances.  They aren't cheap, but if you are running more than about 50 feet, they are the best way to go, and you just use basic cat5e cable.  If you are pushing that length or just over with HDMI, make sure you get redmere cables. 

If you can't find a filler or dowel that looks right in the holes in the floor, you can get plug cutters for a drill and you can find a piece of whatever kind of wood the floor is made from and cut your own plugs and just glue them in and sand flush and stain.. if you are careful you can minimize the sanding and blend it in so well the patch will disappear completely.  The dowel thing works but you end up with end grain and not face grain, so once you stain it, it will be darker.

[BadMouth]

The only other thing I might mention would be to look into Baluns for video or audio over long distances.  They aren't cheap, but if you are running more than about 50 feet, they are the best way to go, and you just use basic cat5e cable.  If you are pushing that length or just over with HDMI, make sure you get redmere cables. 

If you can't find a filler or dowel that looks right in the holes in the floor, you can get plug cutters for a drill and you can find a piece of whatever kind of wood the floor is made from and cut your own plugs and just glue them in and sand flush and stain.. if you are careful you can minimize the sanding and blend it in so well the patch will disappear completely.  The dowel thing works but you end up with end grain and not face grain, so once you stain it, it will be darker.

Yeah, I've only ever owned two 50ft HDMI cables and both of them became unreliable within 2 years.
Because of this, I'm going to locate the splitter on a joist near the center of the house (where it has been) instead of the utility corner of the basement.
It's a small house and I can get away with 15-20ft cables with it located there.


As for the floors, I have a lot of options.
The subfloor is slightly larger T&G oak laid down perpendicular to the top finish floor (squeaky, but not much can be done short of ripping it up and putting down new subfloor).
I found some leftover pieces of this and can cut them down to make replacement planks or plugs.
I'm also replacing the subfloor in the bathroom with something that can support tile better, so I'll have pieces of those boards.

[dkersten]

I don't have experience with it, but from what I have heard, redmere cables that are in that 50 foot range work really well, even with full 1080p and 3D.  They are directional.  I would use a balun before using a splitter/amplifier, but that is me and they are still relatively expensive.  The convenience of just using cat5 cable and converting it back to HDMI at the end is worth it to me... more of a "future proofed" situation.  If cable technology changes (like the new hdmi standard for 4k) you can just change to a new balun and not have to pull a whole new wire. 

In my own house, when I moved in the basement was partly unfinished.  I did a lot of renovation and wired a lot of the house before closing it up.  Even as a pro I didn't do enough though, and over the years I have kicked myself for not spending the extra money to add some cat5 cables I didn't think I would need.  On the other hand, there was never anything I *needed*...