Speaker wires in attic

To go with my new TV I bought an Onkyo HTS5400 7.1 home theater system.  Since my living room is so long I had to buy more speaker wire so the two rear speakers could go against the back wall.

With all my new components: TV, home theater with  a receiver, 7 speakers and a sub woofer, a DVR, and my old VCR, I have wires everywhere.  Tammy wasn't too thrilled with the home theater system with the speakers as that meant wires strung all about the room.  She thinks it looks too much like I'm a red-neck.

Even though it was more work that running the wires along the ceiling, I decided to run the speaker wires through the attic.

I wanted to put the wires into wall behind the receiver and TV but that was a "no-go".   The wall is an outside wall filled with insulation.  In case I could fish a wire through the insulation along a stud I went up and checked out the attic.  Nope.  The top of the wall is covered by a board and the roof is a low roof.   No way to drill a hole into the wall from the attic.

Then I thought about running the speaker wires "kind of" outside the wall.  A number of years ago I added panels of R-12 insulation between the wood siding and the plywood outer part of the wall.  I could drill through the drywall and plywood then run the wire up under the insulation panel.

When I looked at the wood siding I remembered that I had been concerned that gravity would pull down the 2 inch insulation panels and the wood siding so I nailed them real good, and used ribbed nails.  I did a good job as the wood siding and insulation panels are fastened tight to the wall.  I didn't want to ruin my insulating work so I discarded this idea.

So I ran the speaker wires up the inside wall to the ceiling.  I do have a window and curtains nearby and that camouflages most of the wire.

In addition to the hole for the wires to enter the ceiling, I drilled four more holes for the back speakers and the mid-room speakers.  I ran some stiff wire up the holes so I could find the wires and holes once I got in my attic.

Years ago I insulated my attic real good, so moving around it was harder than usual.  In some areas the insulation was so thick I had trouble finding the wires poking up through the ceiling.

Tammy fed wire up into the attic and I grunted and moaned as I tried to move about the attic by keeping on the studs and not falling through the ceiling.  The entry point for the wire, and the rear speakers, were along outside walls with the speakers being in corners.  Very difficult to move around.   Grunting and moaning did help me move about.   Tammy found my sounds humorous.  That was because she stayed in the living room and didn't have to move about the attic.

Fortunately I bought two 100 ft rolls of speaker wire as each roll only wired two speakers, with some wire left over.  That left over wire will go to my front speakers mounted on the wall by the TV as the wire I bought was 16 gauge, an improvement over the wire that came with the speakers.

This wiring job took all afternoon.  Even though I wore a coat, hat and face mask, I had enough of insulation.  Once all the wires were threaded though the ceiling and to the speakers I quit for the day as taking a shower was my main priority.  Tomorrow I will hook up the speakers.


Photos:

The attic for the original (core) part of the house.  The roof has a steeper pitch so I could actually partially stand up in this section.   Here is the amount of insulation I have up here.

Below is where I uncovered a walkway.  After I had insulated the attic years ago I had left some boards over the studs to allow for walking.  I'm glad I left those boards.

The house was built in stages over the years.  When a new addition was built they cut a hole through the roof to allow access to the new section.   Whoever cut the hole must have been small.  This is the opening in the attic between the core of the house and the living room.  And this is after I had enlarged the opening back when I had added the insulation.

The attic over the living room.  Notice the roof isn't as high.  Here I had to move about on hands and knees.  Also notice the "walkway" I had left earlier.

This gives you an idea of how fast the roof slopes down.

Here is my "path" to where the speaker wires come up into the ceiling (at the far end).  Here I had to move about on the studs on each side of the "path".  At the far end I had to lay to reach the wire coming through the ceiling and hope the ceiling wouldn't give and I drop down.

At the top of the photo you can also see how I ran the speaker wires along the roof.  This was to keep the wire out of the way if I have to move around the attic again.  And I wasn't sure if the wire would be ok to be buried under insulation.