Electrical: Run Wires Behind Walls

There are a number of reasons to run electrical wires behind the walls. Speaker system cables and television cords are primary culprits. And if you have any doubt as to your abilities to work around electrical devices, it’s best to leave electrical work to the expertise of an experienced electrician. And for actual power cables, such as the one that came with your television, you should never run the cable behind the wall, because these cables do pose a fire hazard (A terrific idea for the television cable is to have an outlet added directly behind the television by a qualified electrician). But for speaker cables and even the non-outlet cables such as HDMI and audio cables it’s a terrific project to run the cables through the wall and unclutter the space behind your media center.

You’ll need a quality stud finder and something to cut the hole to size, both of which you can find at your local King’s Ace Hardware. And if you have any questions about how the stud finder operates, speak with one of the Ace experts. You’ll also need a flex bit and a glow rod. If you’ve never heard of a glow rod, it’s a rod that glows in the dark and connects itself to other glow rods to form any length imaginable. You’ll also want a mud ring, which is a cover for the hole you plan to make and protection for the exposed drywall edges

First, you’ll drill your holes at the location best-suited for your project (Hole location likely will depend on the location of the studs). The holes should be sized to fit the mud ring. Drill too big a hole, and the mud ring is useless. Then attach your wires to the flex bit and feed them between the holes. Once your wires are in place, you can place the mud ring over the hole and secure the wires to the devices.  It’s not a complicated project, and if you are a newbie to home improvement-type projects, it’s filled with lessons that carryover to the complicated ones.