I am rewiring a house from a central wiring location to each room with Dual RG6 and two CAT5's. Access is through a crawl space below the floor.

Can I get advice on the best method of dressing the cabling in the crawlspace? I would prefer not to simply lay the cables on the ground as the space will be insulated after my installation.

if your going to insulate then you probablly should drill through the beams as you would in a ceiling

Ditto. Or else tack them on the foundation wall with some kind of tie wrap anchor and tapcon or similar concrete anchor.

Try wire rings if you can install them. They are used for attics and are basically small rings, coathanger material. run the lines through them and it keeps them out of the way. There are also surface mount anchors, they screw into the wall and there is the plastic loop for the wire but this will add a lot of time as you use one for each wire and spread them out.

You may find these items handy:

[Link: erico.com]

[Link: erico.com]

Graybar and most other suppliers carry them.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Another idea that I use is get some Romex staples and zip ties. Place the Romex staples along your wire paths and use the zip ties looped through the staples to hold the wires. It's little bit more work than some methods, but you can leave the zip ties loose while you're pulling wire, then tighten them up when you're done. It will also hold a BUNCH of wire. It's also easy to add/change things by cutting the zip tie, and replacing it with a new one.

David

David, funny you should mention this method. We were installing some structured cable last week, we ran out of cable hangers and used this method. I've never heard of it being done before until you mentioned it.

By the way, it worked quite well.

JJP

Yeah, I've done it this way for quite a while. Another variation is to use a T-25 staple gun (cable stapler) and the zip ties. It's a little quicker, but won't hold the weight that the Romex staples will.

David

romex staples and tywraps are a great solution but check with the electrical inspector before you do it, sometimes they won't pass this method

Tie wraps with screw holes are widely available from industry distributors. US tec has u nails with plastic protectors available specifically for their dual rg-6/dual cat 5e cable. It should work for similar cable from other manufacturers.

In the data field I've gone back monthes later to see that tie wraps with screw hole tabs will stress-crack after some some exposure, especially if there are 5 or 6 cables hanging from them. We've tried all different brands of ties and after a while they still get brittle.

You might try bigger (wider) staples and velcro tie straps if you think you'll need to go back and add/delete/upgrade cabling later. It's more expensive, but if it's YOUR project.....

You've got a crawlspace ? You're a lucky person. What about big conduit with strings left inside for future pulls ? If it's a job you can sell the advantages to the customer. Rigid PVC conduit is cheap.

I used 50mm Conduit with Flex where I ended up comming up through the wall cavity, 2 Conduits were used 1 for the RF and Cat5 the other for the Spearker and AV cables from the Equipment to speakers and TV. These were installed from each of the 4 corners of the living room and the one for the speaker & AV cables go to an area under the stairs (closet) where I can swap the way I want the room around. The CAT5 and RF go direct to my riser which is made up of 4 off 500 conduit.
I dont leave a pull cord as I use the inner fibre glass rod of optical fibre cable as a draw wire. Now if you see anyone at the side of the road splicing Fibre cable ask them for a scrap piece and stirp it down, cheaper than those pull rods you buy, and there great for going up walls too.
The above way of running cables gives you great flexibility for future needs
Guy

There is a stapler called something like fast track. It has staples that are shapped for stapeling RG-6 or Cat 5. As long as you are stapeling to wood... the thing is great. Just pull the cables tight before each staple. There is a little feed in the stapler to make sure you don't need splices later.

We have done it this way many many times and haven't had one inspector complain, and our company is based out of Boston. I don't know if all of you know about inspectors in this area, but they are pretty strict. But, I've always been told that as long as it isn't high voltage wiring and doesn't run with it, they really don't care. We normally don't do it this way in cielings in case of fires though...we usually drill through the joists in that case.

This message was edited by McNasty on 05/18/02 08:15.30.

any rookie knows you never tie wrap cat 5 or cat 5 e or cat 6 the pressure of the tie wrap on the wire ruins the bandwidth of the cable.....just messing with you guys...but its a true statement

ed