Ah, fishing. When I was 8 years old I wanted x-ray glasses. Some days I'd give my left nut just for a peek inside a building's infrastructure.
Fishing to me is something more than an art. I'm always lucky. Either good or bad. I've learned some through books, watched others who were better than I ever imagined, and wasted YEARS with my nose in a 2"x4" drywall hole wondering why,,,,why,,,,why,,,,.
Somebody else may have already mentioned this, but when your going through more than one floor on an interior wall, make sure that the top and bottom plates line up. Otherwise, your drilling into the ceiling. When faced with an offset wall, I've drilled down through the attic, through the bottom plate(diversabit with 4' extension, then drilled up the same way from below. Drop a chain/string in the attic till your on the ceiling, then fish up and curl to the direction of the string. wrap it around, hook the string, and pull the string down to the basement. Anywhere from 20 minutes to two days.
One apartment I was asked to fish had hand-painted Egyptian motif wall paper insured for $50 grand. I turned around and walked out. Probably a good move, but it still bothers me.
Sometimes in older homes, when they're balloon framed,(no top and bottom plates, the joist are mortised into the outside wall studs) you can drop a line from the attic all the way to the basement. I've rewired 5 story buildings like this. Drop a nut and hit your helper on the head. Cake money. There's such a draft comming up in the summer when the outside of the building gets hot I could've floated a weather balloon.
Here' s my favorite option: Give the customer an extra outlet on the first/ second floor. Use the hole for that wallplate as a starting point to drill down into the next floor untill you reach ground/basement. Closets are a good idea, but you mine as well see if you can get paid for an extra outlet if it makes your job easier.
When we rewire large buildings, we try taking off the baseboard and knocking the sheetrock out to expose the plate, then drill down. You can fit a coil of lines down a wall this way. Exterior molding is evil.
I would gladly chew your ear off for hours, if only to save you five minutes of the pain it took me what little I've learned, then listen in hopes you would be so gracious as to teach me one more nifty trick.
But hey, fishing is supposed to be relaxing.
Re: Wallfishing
Member #: 26502
Registered: 11/10/2003
Posted:
108
Name:
matt
Company:
cc contracting
Occupation:
cable guy
Location:
manchester
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