Flat panel install story

[Anthony]

Well I encountered a wall designed by Lucifer himself. I had a customer who wanted a flat panel TV in the bedroom.

No wires visible, no repairs of the wall. Stupidly, I took the challenge.

The install was supposed to be simple. Cable guy ran the wire to the attic (which was huge and had a floor, so at least something was easy). I was supposed to get teh cable to a low wall plate, run a Powerbridge from a low wall plate to behind the bracket and have a pass through to allow an in-wall HDMI cable to be behind the TV. Four holes to cut in the drywall, mount the bracket, and snake.

The Powerbridge was easy. I found an existing hole in the fireblocking and snaked the romex right through.

The HDMI cable was another story. The fireblock was lower, making it near impossible to get my flexible drill bit into position from either the top hole (TV bracket) or bottom hole (near the floor). The wall was insulated, so there was no way to see what I was doing. Finally, there were three separate electrical wires running throughout the bay.

I ended up having to drill through the top plate from the attic and letting the drill bit go all the way down to the fireblock. My drill chuck was touching the attic floor when it finally punched through. Beforehand, though, I had to yank out insulation to reveal the electrical wires and make several trips up and down the ladder to the attic to make sure it was in the right spot, away from the wires and not accidentally drilling the drywall (or outside). To top everything off, the wood used in construction was ultra dense, which meant the drill had a hard time (I had to pause to let it cool every few minutes). Two hours after I started this ordeal it finally went through, I got a fish stick in the hole and was able to pull the hdmi, cable signal, and a CAT5e cable in place. The CAT5 is there to act as another pull in case he wants to add a DVD player in the future. I am not tangoing with this wall again.

Fireblock alone is a headache. Fireblock+insulation is EVIL!!!

BTW, I can recommend the Dayton flat panel mounts and CL2 HDMI cables, the Powerbridge products, and the Home Depot's 1" flexible drill bit. The drill bit was a bit unwieldy, but that was probably because I needed the largest size to get the HDMI cable through.