Yesterday was not an ordinary day and now I have a hole in my floor

[Exterous]

It started out well enough but then I decided to tackle the ethernet wiring project I've been avoiding for months. Its something I've done before but going from the second floor to the basement was going to be a PITA so it fell into the "Maybe tomorrow" category quite a bit.

I don't have too many walls that line up so my options were already limited. My first attempt to bridge floor 1 and two ended in "Fuck - thats a steal beam." which negated all but two of the walls that line up since it ran across the house.

Attempt number two ended when I encountered an inefficiently run duct line (a different route would have been shorter so I thought they would have used that

So I had one option left. The downside is that I only had about a 4" gap between various studs so my measuring needed to be pretty accurate. My method of measuring (measure 3 times, prepare to cut, decide to measure a 4th, cut) generally works pretty well. I was also encouraged by the fact that the upstairs room and downstairs room have the exact same room measurements to this wall in terms of length and width.

So I make my holes and drill. After a bit of fussing around I break through and can see the light on upstairs. Jackpot! After some grumbling and a few curse words I get my fish stick through.

Then I head upstairs and immediately notice something wrong. I was smack dab in the 4" gap I needed to be in length wise but something was a bit off on the width:



How the hell did I end up in the hallway?! I measured so many times and the rooms have the same dimension! The walls should line up perfectly. How could I have fucked up so badly?

As I stand there, mouth agape, my wife walks out of the office and deadpans "That doesn't seem right"

I walk though my steps to try and figure out where it all went wrong. After a few minutes my wife says "Wait...isn't there a small overhang on that side of the house?"

Sure enough, on the side of the house that we never go to there is a ~12" overhang - which exactly matches how much I was off. So...yeah. Not sure what to do now since running ethernet to the basement would involve horizontal runs between floors 1 and 2 and I don't want any more holes that I already have...

 

[destrekor]

Ooops!

 

[skimple]

It looks like your off by more than 5"! If that's 2-1/4" trim board, it looks like your 10" off.

 

[Exterous]

It looks like your off by more than 5"! If that's 2-1/4" trim board, it looks like your 10" off.

Apparently I can't type\edit worth shit today. Its about 12" once you factor in the wall thickness

 

[slag]

HEH, I did the exact same thing a few weeks ago but luckily my floor was carpetted so I just put some RTV in the hole to seal it up for sound and with the carpet, you'll never notice.

 

[Eug]

I empathize. I've done this sort of thing a few times, although in my case it's because I had to go at an angle from very cramped quarters.

What you might consider doing is going under the carpet from there to the wall. If it's a thin enough cable, you may not notice much. Or possibly drill a hole to the outside wall and back in again, although recommended would be outdoor cable.

 

[dullard]

I have a similar hole in my house. I was wiring a new whole-house humidifier and wanted to put in the control box close to the thermostat, but the thermostat wiring couldn't easily be followed as it was imbedded when the house had no drywall. All I needed was a simple hole from the basement up into the center of the 4" wall above. Due to house overhang, there was only one good reference point and that was the floor vent on the opposite wall.

Then I made the terrible mistake of asking my wife to mark the hole location downstairs with a tape measure while I measured the wall-to-vent distance upstairs. We both measured at least three times from the inside of the floor vent to the inside of the wall (the shortest possible distance between the two).

Except that we never clarified what the "inside" was. To me, the inside measurement is the shortest distance. It also happened to be the two parts that were the most inside the room and both were pointing towards the inside of the house. To her, the inside measurement is from the furthest part of the vent, towards the outside of the room and closest to the outside of the house. Clearly, a simple misunderstanding.

So, now that I had a marking where the inside edge of the wall was, I drilled a simple hole 2" further out to be in the middle of the wall. Except it wasn't. It was the middle of the baseboard. 7 years later and I still have "replace the baseboard" on my maybe tomorrow list.

 

[IronWing]

From your picture, that looks like a most excellent spot to place your computer desk.

 

[Eug]

From your picture, that looks like a most excellent spot to place your computer desk.

Yes, right smack in the middle of the hallway.

 

[Exterous]

Yes, right smack in the middle of the hallway.

"Open concept office"

Unfortunately its a somewhat thick in wall rated CAT6 cable. I am thinking of maybe removing a strip of carpet pad in that area and running it to the wall since no remaining walls match up. Not sure how much you'd feel it when you walk though. I guess I could pull up the carpet in the hallway and cut the subfloor to run it into the closet but ugh....

 

[BurnItDwn]

The good news is that wifi can be decently fast these days...

 

[CraKaJaX]

LOL @ the wife "That doesn't look right...."

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'd just run them alongside or even inside HVAC ducts. Easy.

 

[NesuD]

I used cold air return duct to do from basement to second floor of the and all points in between. Code inspector may not like it but if you use plenum rated cable can't really say anything. This is all dependent on having forced air heat and A/C obviously.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I used cold air return duct to do from basement to second floor of the and all points in between. Code inspector may not like it but if you use plenum rated cable can't really say anything. This is all dependent on having forced air heat and A/C obviously.

You don't necessarily even have to run them inside the ducts. My dad's house, anyway, had large enough gaps around the ducts that he was able to feed the cabling up to the second floor with a fish stick, outside the duct.

YMMV, obvs.