Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Cable outlet installation

I decided I wanted to add cable into our room the other day so I called the cable company to see how much it would be. Wow! Prices have gone up since the days I worked for the cable company. So I decided to do it myself. So there were a few things to figure out before I started to wire a cable outlet.
  1. Is it going to be on an outside wall or an interior wall? The outside walls have insulation in them making a wall-fish through the attic almost impossible.
  2. Do I have a crawlspace under the house to go through, or maybe I have an unfinished basement? Unfinished basements are my favorite route because there is no crawling and you can still hide all of the coax cable wire.
  3. How far away is the location of my cable outlet installation from the cable junction box? If it is only a few feet I might think of simply going along the siding and straight through the outside wall.
  4. Do I want the cable to be inside the wall or will going through the floor be acceptable? Straight through the floor is the quickest and easiest and the cable can always be pushed down into the carpet when not in use. However this is the least professional looking

In my case I do not have a crawlspace or unfinished basement therefore I went through the outside wall and ran the coax cable wire along the siding. I also know that we will be getting vinyl siding soon that will cover the coax up.

I used a 1/2 drill bit for the hole so it was slightly larger than the cable wire. I also found a special drill bit with a hole in the end so I could strip back the cable and tie the center wire or stinger onto the drill to pull it through the wall. Once the hole was drilled I begin stringing the coax cable wire from the cable junction box to the drill point. Here I watched for obstacles where I needed to run the cable under or behind to keep the cable wire flush with the siding. These included gas pipes or gutter drains, even other wires. Once I made it there I stripped back the cable and attached it to the drill bit and head into the room.

In the room I started pulling the drill bit out (keeping the drill attached to help with grip) to get the cable through the wall. This was not easy so I twisted the drill and bit slightly as I pulled, taking care not to spin the bit as this could break the cable. Once I was through I put on a cable fitting and attached a wall plate. I like to use sheet rock screws to screw the plate to the wall.

Back outside I started to attach the cable to the siding with screw clips. But first I pushed a little bit of cable into the wall for some slack in the future. Instead of going straight across the siding I like to go down to the lowest point or to a seam in the wall to tuck it in there. Now I placed a screw clip about every 2-3 feet pulling the cable tight as I went. Also I used some silicone sealant around the hole to seal up the leak. Once I made it all the way around to the cable junction box I put on another fitting and got another cable splitter with an extra port and hooked it all up. (I went to the local cable company and got a free splitter). Now I was ready to watch t.v. in my room.