Passing a Cat5 cable through a wall.

EyepodI

EyepodI

EyepodI

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Surrey
Ok this should be an easy 5 minute job but it is vexing me. I've done this before for a friend with a coax cable and simply drilled from one side of the wall straight through to the other. Job done, simple.

My wall is a dry wall type (I think that's what you call it). Stud work with plaster board screwed on it. Same as the friends wall but it seems way way thicker :confused: - same builders though. Now when I tried to drill through the wall the drill bit was not long enough so didn't pass all the way through. So went to the other side of wall, measured up same point drilled that side. Intention was to pass coat hanger wire through both holes and tie the cat5 cable onto coat hanger and pull it through.

Now the thing that is baffling me is that looking at the thickness of the wall where it extends into another room it only appears to be about 40cm thick. But I am poking through over 50cm of coat hanger and still not meeting with the other hole. Coat hanger is hitting something springy in there, not sure what it is (membrane or insulation - not sure). The gap seems Tardis like :confused:

Can you even buy a drill bit diameter slightly wider than a cat5 cable and going on for 60cm in length?

I am a bit of a DIY noob but....Frustrated :mad:
 
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Is it a interior wall, or exterior wall with brick outside & plasterboard inside?

Coat hanger is useless, will just bend, probably hitting insulation, plastic membrane as well.
You need a cheap cable access kit, better,or you can use a thin piece of dowel or metal rod, strip back insulation on cable & tape cores to rod to pull cable through.
 
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Tape a magnet on the end of the coat hanger, and push it into the hole.
Go to the other side and using a compass, locate the magnet.

That's where the hole is :)
 
Having done this with a couple internal walls in my house the other week I'd say the first thing to do would be to look in the hole and see if you can see any light from the other room.

I find it very, very odd that your stud wall is the sort of thickness you say ... you seem to be saying that the wall is over a foot and a half thick?
 
memyselfandi said:
I find it very, very odd that your stud wall is the sort of thickness you say ... you seem to be saying that the wall is over a foot and a half thick?
Click to expand...
I was thinking this too. Something definitely isn't right. Has the house been extended? Is this internal wall actually a previously external wall with cavity?
 
@Nightglow, Depends, I've also done similar in my sister's new build running cables between bedrooms and you were talking 70mm to 100mm (and closer to the former ... It was just a basic stud wall after all).

To the OP, another thing that can be useful for acting as a rigid guide through is a chopstick. Also if you are drilling from both sides make sure that you are measuring from a known common point and don't make assumptions that that is the case
 
In ye olden days lights tended to come down from the ceiling to the switch and electrical sockets used to run up from the floor to the socket.
Many new houses tend to have everything on the ground floor running down and everything on upstairs floors running up, but there is massive variation.

If there is a switch or socket near where you are srilling, you should offset so as not to be above or below it directly.
 
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