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Did I harm the integrity of my house trying to run a wire?

Home Improvement Asked by Joe Johnson on February 12, 2021

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I wanted to run a CAT6 cable simply from a first floor room to the second floor room directly above it. I drilled through the bottom plate in the wall on the 2nd floor as shown. I first used a 1/2 in bit, but it was not long enough so I bought a 5/16 one that was 1 ft. Unfortunately I messed up with the first hole and had to stop because due to a slight angle it started poking through the dry wall on the other side (just open air into the house entryway). Seems that the 1 ft one was not long enough either surprisingly because there is still not a thru hole. I’m most worried about whether this is now unsafe, but if not, what is the problem here? Do I need an even longer bit?

UPDATE:
I took out the drywall in the room directly below this, and found a large wooden beam spanning that wall, from at least ceiling level to 1ft down. That wall also has a large opening for a folding door. I fear I really shouldn’t have made those holes— maybe that huge beam is there to compensate for the opening, i.e. lack of studs? What do you think? On the bright side, I got the CAT6 cable out through an exterior wall and ran it up the brick and it looks and works quite good!

Purple is where I know for sure there is wood, green star is directly below the drill holes:

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2 Answers

A few extra holes in the plates are not unsafe, so no -- you didn't harm your house.

Guessing here, but your plate+subfloor+joist height+top plate of first floor is more than 12". Get an 18" installer bit (with a hole near the tip) and use it to fish the wire. Try to make sure you end up centered in the plate below.

Edit to say that you need to cut a bit more drywall back to understand that header and how to get through it. Maybe you'll get lucky and it won't go much further to the left. Maybe you'll be less lucky and have to drill through it. Any way you slice it, you need more drywall gone, and a large patch is about the same as a small patch.

Answered by Aloysius Defenestrate on February 12, 2021

First - you have done nothing that will harm your house other than give a few bugs a raceway, but this is the 50th raceway, not the 1st.

Second - you will have to open it up from below to see what is there. You went through bottom plate and subfloor. You probably (almost definitely not) don't need a longer bit.

Answered by DMoore on February 12, 2021

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