Hi Guys.

I'm getting ready to wire our new house this weekend after the subs finish and have followed the advice of a lot of thread here in the forums about the type and size of conduit to run, the type of wire, etc... One of the things I haven't seen anywhere is how people handle the cable weight/tension in long vertical runs.

I'm not sure if it's fortunate or not, but I have straight runs to the basement from all my first and second floor rooms. I'm wondering how people handle the weight/tension of a run like this? Do you tie/anchor the cable in the conduit at the openings, should I manufacture a horizontal run every X feet, etc...? I'm worried about tension on the cable/wall plates as well as on the cable itself (will wire end up stretching and breaking over time, etc....

Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

-spj

1) I would not worry about it, any cable that can't support itself for 100' vertical drop or less has serious design problems. There is merit to anchoring the cables at the termination point, that is something that I would do. The fewer twists and turns in your conduit the better - you will thank me later when you need to fish wires through it.

2) Don't put your initial cable set inside the conduit, only use the conduit for future expansion. You can put a pull string in the conduit to make it easier to get new wires through it later.

The most sensitive cable to stretching is a HDMI cable. Its weight is approximately 1-2 lb / 3 feet (depends on the cable construction) the maximum tension is typically 10-20 lbs (once again depending on cable construction, the heaver cables typically can take more tension). Doing the math a 30 foot HDMI cable can support itself without undue stress. So, running between 2-3 floors should pose no problem.

Just throwing my hat in with the other posters...I wouldn't worry about it either. I've had to get a couple of hundred feet before...was never a big deal, though at that point we did have to rig some stuff to deal with cable sag. Very easy though. 30' is nothin'.

Frank

Awesome, thanks for the info guys!