Gauging Interest: Hollow Quarter Round Trim for Wiring

How are you going to pull cable through that? And how much cable do you reckon will fit in there anyway? I assume you plan to glue it in place?

Lastly, wouldn't it just be easier to use a router table and router out a slot in the bottom of a traditional piece of wooden quarter round to lay the cable in? Or even to just install the main baseboard about ½ inch above the floor, to provide a channel' for your wire underneath it, then install a traditional piece of quarter round in front of it to hide the channel?

-Suntan

I had to hide some wiring when I was doing a job once because some plans that were provided by an outside firm didn't have the proper cables detailed and I had to fix the mess. We run wires through a chair rail - not an ideal situation IMO.

I think you would be best served looking at flatwire as you can spackle and paint over it or run it under carpet. When showing that to an older friend of mine, he saw it and said it was submarine wire.

The issue with wiring like that is you cannot repair it easily if it goes bad and nailing up the wood is a very easy way to damage your wire.

They do have stuff that does what you want they sell for office installations but it isn't what I would consider attractive in an office and certainly wouldn't look any better in a home.

I doubt you will be able to fit much more in ther then the speaker wires. Have you considered something like wiretracks? While it is more work it would provide a lot more room for expansion.

http://www.wiretracks.com/prod-rf.html

Welcome to the Forum, now we get to rag on you. I think you could have hidden the wires using other non visible methods in less than a weekend. But I don't know about the construction of your walls so I am making assumptions.

+1.

Welcome...however...

I really do not believe you will fit anything but the speaker wires if that...and how do you get the speaker wire started as well as turn at the corners? Just seems like a hard way around things.

If you can't snake through walls I would have just taken off the quarter round you have on it, routed the bottom of the baseboards and stuffed the cables that way - then get a proper base cap to replace the quarter round with. Quarter round doesn't look as good.

Not worth the investment.

How are you going to get this:



Through something with a cross section of this?:



-Suntan

Not tough - logical.

It still wouldn't work.

Suntan gave a great response.

Hold the end of a VGA cable up to one of your pieces of quarter round in your house...

Better yet, bundle up all the cables you are looking to shove in and hold them up to it...

Now take all those cables and try to bend them into a sharp 90° bend such as the quarter round makes in the corner of your wall. Do they still stay within that envelop?

Second, even using some type of adhesive to hold the QR in place, with a wall thickness of only 50 thousandths using PVC, I don't see how you could get this extruded QR to keep its shape while the glue dries. Unless you have perfectly straight cables with no kinks in them (possibly doable for vga cables, but not likely for long CAT5 runs or speaker wire) they will want to pull that open C channel apart long before the glue dries to hold it in place.

-Suntan

One more quick thought, when you say you checked that your bundle of cables would fit, did you make sure to mock it up using in-wall rated wires? They can have more insulated shielding on them, making them fatter.

As you will be permanently adhering them into the wood work, I would hazard to guess that most inspectors would require an in wall rating.

-Suntan

One other consideration of this and other wall mounted solutions is what are you going to do when you meet a doorway, fireplace or hallway?

My recommendation for DIYers with moderate wall fishing skills would be to punch a hole in the wall and pull cables up to the ceiling exiting via another hole. Then go around the perimeter of the room inside crown molding. Then descend inside stud bays.

Fishing a wire vertically inside a single joist bay is relatively simple for a first time fisherman. If you encounter a horizontal brace, then you cut a hole in the drywall, drill a hole in the brace and patch the drywall.

There is a crown molding design that compliments just about every architectural style.

You can also put a HELL of a lot of wires behind some crown moulding. I have an obscene amount of wiring going (13 runs of 12ga. speaker wire, 3 balanced interconects, 5 RG6 and I think 3 or 4 cat5e) to the front of my theater along some crown moulding so I wouldn't have to punch holes in the walls in my room (preserving the soundproofing efforts).

With regards to the VGA cable, you can run the cable through the walls and terminate the ends later although it is a PITA. Rapid Run cables make such things quite convenient.

I think you will be much happier if you just bite the bullet and fish it through the walls.

It appears support for the marketing of this is just not here. I for one would love, though, to see a picture of this bundle of wires held up to the standard quarter round...I was looking at a piece of mine last night and thinking, "Really?"

Keep in mind the wiring has to stay within the "C" of the cut out - and with this many wires, as Suntan said, you are going to fight the whole time it is adhering to the wall to keep it in place. And then the issue with corners - you aren't going to be able to turn that bundle inside of such a tight area...not possible, not without splitting the thing off the wall the whole way down and ruining the adhesive job you just worked so hard for. And then as Big said..the doors - you would end up having to fish them up the wall (what you worked so hard to avoid).


It's again, just a really hard (and expensive) way around a simple task.
A manufacturer will make you pretty much anything you want if you pay enough...doesn't mean it will work for the intended purpose.

Peace...do understand we aren't attacking you, just an idea that we don't believe can work...and you put it out there.

i think your idea is great, but as others have pointed out its not technically feasable for the situation...

this one doesnt look terrible, with some regular 1/4 round you can make it asthetically pleasing.

I've been looking for the same thing. Neither baseboard nor crown molding will work in my situation. The closest I've been able to find so far are the D-line quadrant trunking

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/47583/...GQMCSTHZPCFFA#

and the Maplin, which appears to be similar:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=220582

Both seem to be available only in the UK . . .

I havent looked for it in the US, but these structured wiring solutions are very common in Europe and quite easy to buy off the shelf. Would seem to be a much easier solution.

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

I came across this thread while researching this possibility for two small surround speaker wires.

Just FYI, such a product now exists...

E.g.,
http://www.cableorganizer.com/d-line-quarter-raceway/