We're planning on replacing the carpet in our main living room with some of
that engineered wood flooring. At present we have the Hi-Fi unit on the
opposite side of the room to the speakers,so we have 'flat profile' speaker
cable running across the room close to one of the end walls. I'm happy to do
this because we could leave a slight gap in the foam underlay to allow for
the depth of the cables, but it seems we won't be able to do the same when
we replace carpet + underlay with the wood flooring. What's the usual
approach?

Take cables etc up the walls and over at ceiling level?
Chase into the floor, and sink cables into trunking there?
Move the speakers onto the other side of the room?

OG wrote:
We're planning on replacing the carpet in our main living room with some of
that engineered wood flooring. At present we have the Hi-Fi unit on the
opposite side of the room to the speakers,so we have 'flat profile' speaker
cable running across the room close to one of the end walls. I'm happy to do
this because we could leave a slight gap in the foam underlay to allow for
the depth of the cables, but it seems we won't be able to do the same when
we replace carpet + underlay with the wood flooring. What's the usual
approach?

Take cables etc up the walls and over at ceiling level?
Chase into the floor, and sink cables into trunking there?
Move the speakers onto the other side of the room?

Either (a) or (b); or if you can't be arsed, then (c)! (I take it from
the word "chase" that you have a solid floor, so you can't run cables
under floorboards?

David

In article ,
OG wrote:
We're planning on replacing the carpet in our main living room with some
of that engineered wood flooring. At present we have the Hi-Fi unit on
the opposite side of the room to the speakers,so we have 'flat profile'
speaker cable running across the room close to one of the end walls.
I'm happy to do this because we could leave a slight gap in the foam
underlay to allow for the depth of the cables, but it seems we won't be
able to do the same when we replace carpet + underlay with the wood
flooring. What's the usual approach?

Forget the speakers and get some cordless headphones. Seriously. Wood
floors will make the system sound horrid after carpet.

--
*When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 28 Apr, 00:53, "OG" wrote:

We're planning on replacing the carpet in our main living room with some of
that engineered wood flooring. At present we have the Hi-Fi unit on the
opposite side of the room to the speakers,so we have 'flat profile' speaker
cable running across the room close to one of the end walls. I'm happy to do
this because we could leave a slight gap in the foam underlay to allow for
the depth of the cables, but it seems we won't be able to do the same when
we replace carpet + underlay with the wood flooring. What's the usual
approach?

Take cables etc up the walls and over at ceiling level?
Chase into the floor, and sink cables into trunking there?
Move the speakers onto the other side of the room?


The slight gap round the edge under the skirting is a good place to
fit thin cable.

Another option is to use enamelled copper wire. This is almost no
bigger than the bare copper. And you can fit it in almost anywhere,
even in wood joints! The insulation is less than brilliant, so you'd
need to route the 2 cores separately for total reliability. Putting
this on the floor and putting the wood on top is an option.

But I'd go with flex under the skirting if poss, as its more reliable
than enam cu in the floor itself.

If you put more cable in you can use it for phone etc later.


NT

OG wrote:
We're planning on replacing the carpet in our main living room with some of
that engineered wood flooring. At present we have the Hi-Fi unit on the
opposite side of the room to the speakers,so we have 'flat profile' speaker
cable running across the room close to one of the end walls. I'm happy to do
this because we could leave a slight gap in the foam underlay to allow for
the depth of the cables, but it seems we won't be able to do the same when
we replace carpet + underlay with the wood flooring. What's the usual
approach?

Take cables etc up the walls and over at ceiling level?
Chase into the floor, and sink cables into trunking there?
Move the speakers onto the other side of the room?


I'd chase into the floor, although most laminates have a foam underlay
too..its just somewhat thinner.

OG wrote:
We're planning on replacing the carpet in our main living room with
some of that engineered wood flooring. At present we have the Hi-Fi
unit on the opposite side of the room to the speakers,so we have
'flat profile' speaker cable running across the room close to one of
the end walls. I'm happy to do this because we could leave a slight
gap in the foam underlay to allow for the depth of the cables, but it
seems we won't be able to do the same when we replace carpet +
underlay with the wood flooring. What's the usual approach?

Take cables etc up the walls and over at ceiling level?
Chase into the floor, and sink cables into trunking there?
Move the speakers onto the other side of the room?

I've tended to use the light fibrous 6mm insulation sheet under laminate,
rather than the 2mm foam. The sheets allow more flexibilty for uneveness,
and a space can be made for small cables (cat5 in our house).