[Shizelbs]

When I my house was being built, I snuck in the night that insulation was installed and before drywall was put up. I drilled two holes through the floor between the studs in the walls where I would eventually run speaker cables for the surround channels for my HT setup.

So last weekend, my father in law and I finally get this project going. We get the holes drilled for the near AVR side done. We install the wall plate with the binding posts. Everything is going great. I go down into the crawlspace to look for the holes I drilled over a two years ago, and long story short, the holes are blocked and short of doing major demo/drywall/reflooring there is not going to be any surround sound in my HT for a while.

If I decide to keep my surround speakers, until we get new flooring for that room, we are going to have to keep running our thick, black speaker wire across the floor and setup the speakers each and every time we want surround sound.

I'm so bummed. I thought I was so clever to go ahead and drill those holes ahead of time. Our builder offered to do it for us, but for literally thousands of dollars to run cheap lamp cord quality wiring and drill the necessary holes.

So I am at somewhat of a crossroads. I just don't know what to do. Do I just suck it up, and run the kind of hokey looking cables all over the floor system?

One thing that I am thinking of doing is just going total 2.1. I could consolidate my HT and 2 channel systems. Sell everything, amps, all nine speakers, preamp, AVR, sub, DVD player, everything, take that money and buy a better system. The big drawbacks to that are that I really like my speakers (Caver Amazings) and they would not work in that setup (the footprint is too big for the room). The benefit is that I could have my main 2 channel system in the room that gets the most time occupied, and I could effectively stop spreading my resouces and focus on one great system, but without having surround sound.

I'm just not sure what I want to do.

Anyone have any tips or advice.

 

[Jamfan16]

Do you have pictures of the room so we can see what you're up against? If not, is going through the ceiling/attic not an option? Are you crossing a large hardwood floor where area rugs are not an option?

I guess selling your gear is an option, but that just seems so depressing.. there's got to be a fix.

 

[Shizelbs]

Going through the ceilings not an option. Its across about 18 feet of carpeted floor. Rugs would not be a viable solution.

 

[Shizelbs]

I'll try and get a pic up later tonight.

 

[ccotenj]

just suck it up, and route the cables with reasonable care and it won't look too bad... i'm stuck with the same scenario (+100 year old house with plaster walls) and after awhile, you don't even know they are there...

 

[spacemanspliff]

Just get cable the color of the carpet and run it man.

Go for it.

 

[GSurge]

Run the cables straight up the wall and then along the top edge over/through doorways.

 

[Fitz]

Are the holes themselves blocked, or is the area in the crawlspace where the holes would be blocked? If it's the former, it'd be trivial to just redrill them from underneath.

 

[heatmizer]

Cut a 2x4 inch hole 12 inches up from floor below where each surround speaker is. Goto home depot buy a long drill 48 inch long prob 5/8 to 3/4 inch. Drill down through 2x4 hole into floor keep bit as straight down as possible. Once through to basement. Push stiff wire (coat hanger) into crawl. Attach stiff wire to the speaker wires use electrical tape etc. Pull required amount of wire up through floor and out of 2x4 inch hole.
Cut another 2x4 inch at surround speaker height and snake wire up though wall through top hole.
Buy some low voltage retro plaster ring and single gang cover white, ivory whatever. If you want to paint them match wall get metal.
You have now fished the wire is unobstusive and not to hard todo. No patching drywall and looks way better than routing wire on floor.

 

[tbonner1]

I have had several new homes built recently and each builder is very difficult to deal with regarding any changes or modifications after the contract is signed.

They are very worried about construction defect lawsuits.

It is too bad as during the framing is the best time to do the modifications for wiring.

 

[heatmizer]

Yeah most new construction is priced so tight any changes after the contract can blow any profit the builder might make. So they need to make it difficult with any change orders so that they can get paid for the extras. If its not on paper it didn't happen.

 

[velogreg]

Pictures and or a room diagram would help. Until then have you considered running the cable behind the baseboard? That solution worked for two of my rooms.