# Moving Speaker Wire in Drywall



## Proby (Jul 17, 2010)

So you want to move the wire up to where the speaker is in that picture? If so, that's very easy. You can fish the wire behind the drywall with a coat hanger. Bring it out a new hole up behind the speaker, then use a little bit of spackle to patch the existing hole down below. 

If you were looking to put the speaker to the left of right of that existing hole, then you would have to do more work since there are studs to get past.


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

The problem with that is the wire is nailed to the stud right at the hole that it comes out (I had to attach it to something and towards to outside face of the stud so that the crew that hung the drywall would see it and keep from covering it up). In order to loosen it, I would have to demo a chunk of drywall, which I think would lead to a bigger repair.


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## Willie T (Jan 29, 2009)

Why loosen it from the nail? Just use the long wire you now have there.

Routing a channel is kind of nuts.


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## Proby (Jul 17, 2010)

I definitely agree with Willie. Making a channel and having to repair it is a lot more work.

You can just feed the wire back in the wall. If you aren't able to do that, you can make the hole an inch bigger and use a screwdriver to loosen the staple. An inch hole is still a lot easier to fix than a 3 foot channel.

Just make sure that your splices are solid because you won't have access to them later. Do you have a soldering gun or iron? A crimper for butt connectors?


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## gmhammes (Jan 10, 2010)

My 2 cents... drop a wire down the wall from the new speaker location to the old location instead of trying to fish it up the wall. (outside wall may be more difficult) then cut the splice you currently have off and solder the new wire and old wire, push it all i the wall and patch it up. 

Side note, make sure you attach the wire coming out of the new hole to the wall with a staple or even hot glue so if the wire is hanging loose not attached to the speaker it doesn't fall back in the wall.


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

Willie T said:


> Why loosen it from the nail? Just use the long wire you now have there.
> 
> Routing a channel is kind of nuts.


It's nailed such that the wire wants to stick out of the wall. If I don't loosen it and simply try to patch over it, I expect the spackle will spall off. It's fastened with a bent over nail, so I imagine I would need a 3x3 hole for access to remove the nail and I figured patching a 3/16 channel would be easier that a 3x3 hole.


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## Proby (Jul 17, 2010)

WirelessG said:


> It's nailed such that the wire wants to stick out of the wall. If I don't loosen it and simply try to patch over it, I expect the spackle will spall off. It's fastened with a bent over nail, so I imagine I would need a 3x3 hole for access to remove the nail and I figured patching a 3/16 channel would be easier that a 3x3 hole.


A round 3/4" hole is all you need to bend that nail a bit with needle nose pliers. Smear some mud over it and you're done.


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

Well, let's say I bent the nail the thread it up the wall. I have another speaker wire to move and this one has to go from the South Wall to the East wall (the wire currently sticks out of the South wall near the East end).


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## Proby (Jul 17, 2010)

WirelessG said:


> Well, let's say I bent the nail the thread it up the wall.


I'm not following what you're saying here.


> I have another speaker wire to move and this one has to go from the South Wall to the East wall (the wire currently sticks out of the South wall near the East end).


Do you have an attic or basement above or below this room?


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

Proby said:


> I'm not following what you're saying here.
> 
> Do you have an attic or basement above or below this room?



What I was saying is I can try what everyone is suggesting (i.e. push the wire back in the wall and pop a new hole higher up to bring the wire out). But will only take care of one speaker.

No, there's no attic. It's in a bonus room.


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## Proby (Jul 17, 2010)

WirelessG said:


> What I was saying is I can try what everyone is suggesting (i.e. push the wire back in the wall and pop a new hole higher up to bring the wire out). But will only take care of one speaker.
> 
> No, there's no attic. It's in a bonus room.


What's underneath, the garage?

If not, can you remove the molding from the bottom of the wall? If so, you can run the wire behind that around the corner and then run it up inside the wall to the new speaker location.

I see you have crown molding up there, you can do the same thing, but crown molding is a bit harder to mess with and then re-caulk and paint.


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

Proby said:


> What's underneath, the garage?
> 
> If not, can you remove the molding from the bottom of the wall? If so, you can run the wire behind that around the corner and then run it up inside the wall to the new speaker location.
> 
> I see you have crown molding up there, you can do the same thing, but crown molding is a bit harder to mess with and then re-caulk and paint.


Attached is a pic of the 2nd speaker. Going down to the garage or the base board would be a tremendous amount of work.


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

here's the pic


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## gmhammes (Jan 10, 2010)

Believe it our not going down to the trim is probably one of the easiest ways (cheat way) to do it. You have no area above or below this room so either i would do the whole baseboard idea or start ripping out walls! Is there carpet in the 2 rooms? Wedge the speaker wire under the basemolding between the carpet.


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## homerb (May 7, 2010)

One of the pictures has crown molding and the other one doesn't. Are these in separate rooms or something? 

Your idea about taking a dremel and creating a little "channel", I think, is a great idea. I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier myself! Just make sure to set your depth right, so you don't hit studs, or worse, wires. 

I'd see you can find some kind of "high strength" joint compound, rather than spackling. You don't want that cracking on you. 

Of course, you'll have to match the texture and paint, (Something you wouldn't have to do if you ran it behind the walls) but that's a relatively simple job. But that'll be a lot simpler than replacing entire sections of drywall and having to do multiple applications of joint compound to make them appear completely flat with the walls. Just fill it in, apply some texture, and paint it. 

Homer


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## AllanJ (Nov 24, 2007)

Routing a channel in drywall to bury wires can result in the wall cracking if someone leans up against it. Even after you spackle it back together.

Depends on where the studs are relative the the channel you cut.


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## WirelessG (Mar 22, 2009)

No, the speakers are in the same room. On one side the ceiling is flat and the other side is vaulted.

I would have thought that if I added drywall tape after mudding the routed channel, the drywall would not crack. Is this not the case? 

I had resigned myself to simply relocating it behind the wall, but other things came up and I haven't dome anything yet.


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## homerb (May 7, 2010)

AllanJ said:


> Routing a channel in drywall to bury wires can result in the wall cracking if someone leans up against it. Even after you spackle it back together.
> 
> Depends on where the studs are relative the the channel you cut.



Although there sure is the possibility of cracking the drywall, It looks like the speaker wire is only getting routed a couple feet, so the structural integrity of the drywall sheet shouldn't be severely compromised. One thing you could do to strengthen it is to screw the drywall to the studs above and below the channel being cut. Do this before you cut the channel, that way everything is held in exactly the same place. Screwing it in after the channel is cut could possibly crack the drywall. 

Also, one thing about the wires. When you make your connections to extend the wires from their original location to the new location, make sure you "Stagger" the connections. That way, the connection for the positive is a little bit further down the wire than the connection for the negative lead. That eliminates any possibility of the speaker wires shorting against another, but most importantly, it makes less of a bulge in the wire where the connections are made. This might be important being that you are routing wires through a narrow channel. 

Show us some pics when you get it done. 

Oh, and one other thing that might make a cleaner installation: Wall plates. You could either get wall plates with speaker posts in them, but depending on the size of the speaker, they might not hide well. You could go to your local car audio shop and get some press-in speaker box terminals. (Pictured below) Paint them the same color as the wall and they'll blend right in.

Here's my setup. I just wired in the speaker terminals this weekend. I originally had holes in the wall. 

I was stupid. Before I installed the TV, I had the wall all torn apart to remove built in drywall shelving that formed a grid on the entire wall all the way to the ceiling. I patched it all up without running any speaker wires. When it came to run the wires when I finally got a system, I had to run the wires for the left and right all the way up in to the attic and back down again on each side. You can see the speaker post wall plates on either side of the TV for the side speakers I'm about to install. 

EDIT: The first picture with the two wall plates should be rotated vertically. Not sure why it's horizontal. 

Homer


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## unlvrebel (Jul 20, 2010)

This looks like a good time to mould the ceiling too...


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