Need Wall fishing Suggestions

I assume you need to do this because the dish is (will be) located on/near the roof. Is it possible to locate it somewhere else so that it's not necessary to go through the second story? Is there a basement/crawl space where wire could be brought from a ground-mounted (see my avatar) location?

 

With blasting dynamite? :shrug:

 

These are the kind of installations that I do every day. Without more information, I can only speculate. First, is this on an interior or exterior wall? Is the siding material vinyl, Hardie Plank, wood or brick, if it is an exterior wall. Is there a crawl space or a basement. In Lousiana, I would expect a slab. Is there enough headroom over the place in the attic, where you want to place thephone line and the drop?

First, I will describe the interior wall drop to the first floor.



First, remove the entire electrical box into which the original cable is threaded.

I'd drill a very small 1/4" pilot hole some 1-1/2 inches to the side of the current cable entrance hole. If you hit thin air, this is the side int which that you want to proceed. Then, using a 2-9/16 inch self feeding plumber/electrician's bit to cut a hole into the 2x4 top plate into the wall cavity. I'd use a very bright xenon flashlight like a Scorpion and look down into the cavity. If you see a firestop, you'd need to use a 6 foot long 3/4" flex bit like a Greenlee (Home Depot) to drill through it into the next cavity. Be sure it is spaced midway between the walls. If the cavity is empty to the floor, used the same bit with a five foot extension, drill through the floor plate 2x4 into the cavity between the floor and the ceiling and into the first floor wall cavity. Withdraw the bit back through the attic. Using 1/4" Greenlee extension rods (Home Depot). run the rods into the cavity until you reach the floor plate of the first floor. If you measured correctly, you will see the fiberglass rod in the wall cavity, through the electrical box hole.

Exterior walls can be handled easily, if you are working with vinyl siding. If this is so, please indicate that you want a discussion on that.

 

It may be cheaper to just move!

 

We run into this often. Idiot contractors. Homeowner thinks they had it done right.

Customer will have to pay a bunch of money to have this done, so ...

No matter what, he's gonna be pissed at someone - make sure it's not you.

 

I don't mind if they get it right. But, I get a lot of business doing wall fishes.

It's hard to know what the future developments are and what future cabling need are.

 

True - but any house pre-wired in the last 5-10 years that doesn't have multiple RG-6 homeruns was done by someone that was clueless.

 

Just did one, Thursday. Ran a dual cable from the attic to the basement. Only evidence of a wall fish was a blank 2x4" wall plate about 6 inches from the floor in a closet. There was even a firestop in the middle of the wall, which I penetrated with a 6 foot flex bit from the attic floor. I could have repaired the drywall, but the homeowner said it was no matter. I ran a five tuner install, including two 322s and a 311, using a DishPro twin, a DP34 cascaded with a dp21. Dual cables went to inwall plates on outside walls full of insulation. Backfeeds went to four secondary TVs.