Thin plaster solid wall channelling advice

[flemingcool]

Hi,

I'm after some advice.

I'm mounting my TV on the wall. I'd like to channel the wires into the wall and allow myself the option of upgrading/adding equipment over the coming years.

I was planning on using some big fat conduit with a couple of double brush plates for access. However after starting to channel the plaster I've found out the plaster is only 20mm thick, then you hit brick. This obviously isn't deep enough for what I require. So I'm after some help/advice about my alternatives.

1. False wall - how easy/hard is this? I have great big 70's coving at the top, and I think this complicates this. I don't want to remove the coving really.

2. Bore into the garage in two places and run cables down my garage wall. Only problem is garage isn't insulated and bore bits cost about £80

3. conduit less than 20mm thick.

Anyone got any advice about the best way to overcome this?

Thanks.

 

[Sanders79]

Whether you want to build a floating wall depends on a few things: the look you are trying to achieve, your skills if you want to go DIY and the cost of the materials you will need. There are loads of really good examples on these forums. To my mind, the main advantages of having a floating/false wall are as follows:

• Potentially easier than cutting channels out of solid blockwork walls (less dusty, faster).
• More scope to add things like lighting at the same time.
• Loads of space for running cables, including any future changes.

If you are proficient at DIY, then a floating wall should be within your skill set, but only you can really decide that! As the results on here largely show, it is something you don't have to be a pro to do and get excellent results.

There are a few downsides I can think of:

• ? increase in cost for materials.
• No good if it's not the look you are after.
• The wall would take up living space, an issue if your room is small and space is ata premium.

If you were to go ahead as you first planned and sink trunking into the wall, you need to first establish what the wall is made of (i.e. the kind of blocks used) and how deep into the wall you want to go. In my living room, I was able to put a section of 50 x 100 mm trunking into the wall, but this might not be suitable for your walls. I also didn't have to worry about mess, as the house was totally empty when I did the work, so I just attacked the walls with an angle grinder - impossibly dusty work, don't do this if you have your carpet/sofa/curtains/cat in situ! The cheap & relatively clean but time consuming alternative is to chain drill and then use a chisel.

So... the options you listed in your original post:

1. False wall, potentially easy, potentially tricky depending on your design and skills. The coving at the top of the wall wouldn't necessarily have to come down, you could build up to it with plasterboard and then skim (or scribe the MDF if that's your skin of choice).
2. Bore into the garage and run your cables in there: I wouldn't want to do this personally, just because I think it's a bit lazy and I would want the garage walls to be tidy as well as the living room, rather than having random cables appearing/disappearing. If you did want to do this, you could hire the tools locally rather than buy them.
3. Small profile conduit - probably no good for most cables you want to install (HDMI, scart etc...) unless the plan is just to plaster over the cables without the option of removing them later. If that's the case, you could just plaster straight over them without any trunking at all.

The best advice I can give right now is, have a look at other people's threads (including mine if you want to see a living room without a floating wall), get some ideas about he look you want to achieve, then decide honestly if you think it is within your skills and woth the time/effort/expense.

Hope this helps!!

 

[Sanders79]

Oh and by the way, if you do decide to have a floating wall, who says it has to be the full height of the ceiling and fight with the coving?

 

[flemingcool]

The look I want dictates that it would be the entire end of the room made false. I want it flat and simple. The more I think about it the more boring the walls out appeals. I can easily box the cables off in the garage, there is only shelving on that side of the garage anyway. I don't really want to grind into the brickwork, due to the dust issue, and it seems a bit over the top when boring gives the same results, means I don't need to get wall plastered, and gives ultimate flexibility for adding and removing equipment. Decisions...

 

[FlubWubJub]

i personally would go with your idea of boring through into the garage..
I (last week) put my cables into the wall, but due to having thin plaster like you, i had to go into the brick... i chose the manual way of a trusty chisel and hammer.

My problem was that i couldn't go too deep into the brick and due to the amount of cables i needed to run they wouldn't fit into conduit... this means i've had to plaster the cables in place, so i have no scope for change in future unless i rip them all out.

If you went via teh garage and brush plates it would be relatively easy to change a cable in future, or even completely remove them and plaster over the holes if you changed TV position.

 

[ianmacd]

A few points for your bore idea.

If there is a cavity make sure you aren't providing a bridge across it for moisture by angling all the cables down. Do not run mains voltage cables with the others. Make sure you seal the holes after with (possibly) a foam sealer to resist air passage in your new hole.

These are to comply with the current building regs.

Some 50x50mm trunking on the garage wall could be of use here (all trunking needs fixing properly, the sticky strip is only really meant for positioning and holding while securing).

For information too, you can only put a vertical chase into a wall up to 1/3 depth of the leaf you are channeling so getting a large piece of conduit in may be a non starter too (building reg).

 

[flemingcool]

Thanks all for the advice.

I've bored two holes through now. Going to line the holes with some waste piping to make it easier to thread cables across the cavity. Bought some brush face plates to cover the internal wall opening, and going to box the cables up in the garage. Hopefully this box will stop any draughts and prevent anything snagging on the cables. Given the options available I think this was the right solution.

 

[adrian007uk]

If you were to go ahead as you first planned and sink trunking into the wall, you need to first establish what the wall is made of (i.e. the kind of blocks used) and how deep into the wall you want to go. In my living room, I was able to put a section of 50 x 100 mm trunking into the wall, but this might not be suitable for your walls. I also didn't have to worry about mess, as the house was totally empty when I did the work, so I just attacked the walls with an angle grinder - impossibly dusty work, don't do this if you have your carpet/sofa/curtains/cat in situ! The cheap & relatively clean but time consuming alternative is to chain drill and then use a chisel.

Hi Sanders79, how would you determine what the wall was made of and how deep it is without putting a hole in it?

Flemingcool, how long do you think your project will take?

 

[Sanders79]

Hi Sanders79, how would you determine what the wall was made of and how deep it is without putting a hole in it?

Maybe you would know from experience with other rooms in the house. Most likely it would be necessary to drill a hole and see what kind of dust comes out (red = brick, fine grey powder = aircrete, etc.) and see how deep the first skin of blockwork is. You can make educated guesses about how deep the first skin would be by the material it's made of too, e.g. aircrete blocks are about 200 to 220 mm deep (I think!). If you do drill through to the cavity, make sure the hole is properly filled again afterwards.