J hooks

Ira

Active Member
I want to use J hooks (or something similar) to elevate all my new LV wiring off of the attic floor. I've got plenty of rafters, braces, etc. that I can attach the J hooks to, but all of the J hooks I've seen look to be for commercial/industrial use where everything is at right angles, beams are available to clamp on to, etc., or they use threaded rods or cables for hanging. They also look like they would be difficult to bend/twist.
 
Are there any that are a bit flexible so that they can be bent after being nailed to a rafter, etc. to get the "carrier part" correctly positioned? Essentially none of the framing members in my attic are close to being vertical, horizontal, etc., because they all follow the slope of the roof (or are complementary to the slope).
 
Thanks,
Ira
 
Here I utilized plastic plumbing style PVC style J Hooks in my attic.  Attic here is high at more than 8 feet such that I used one cheapo $1 plastic J Hook on every rafter.  I understand it is not the best mechanism but it has worked fine for over 10 years for the second floor LV drops.  (network, RG6, speaker and security wires).  The plastic is flat with nail mounting holes on the flat and long side of the bracket.
 
jhooks.jpg
 
Originally built a cat walk and added lighting along the length of the attic and a chase from the basement to the middle of the attic.
 
I use D-rings in my attic.  Both are useful, the J-rings wouldn't have worked where I wanted to run the wires.   The rings are screwed into the underside of the rafters.  Recall running the bundles out on the joists during the installation process and then raising them up into the rings and attaching them.  This to avoid yanking out rings, possibly twisting rafters (not likely) or damaging cables from pulling during installation.  
 
http://www.cablingplus.com/t/installation-accessories/wire-management/j-hooks-and-d-rings
 
Which was hung above where the insulation crew was going to have to come in later.  I didn't want the wires down on the ceiling joists where they'd be out of sight or stepped on during installation of insulation.  Both the batts used during construction and the spray foam I plan on eventually having installed (at some point).
 
Caddy makes all variations of a theme of hooks and rings.
 
If you have a big enough bundle, use hooks or rated loops. The smaller bearing area of rings or other rigged hangers tends to cleave the bottom cables over time.
 
DELInstallations said:
The smaller bearing area of rings or other rigged hangers tends to cleave the bottom cables over time.
 
I suppose it would depend on the number of elements in the bundle and the distance between the rings.  That and the kind of cables.  Some being considerably heavier than others (like multi-conductor mini coax).  For the runs I've got there's probably 6 CAT5E, four 18/4 and a mini coax (which will likely never get used).  I've seen some wiring plants with a lot more jammed into bundles and have wondered about the potential weight issues.
 
I just recently installed a bunch of new cabling in the attic (CAT, coax, 14/4 speaker) and removed some existing runs.  I hung sections of 2" PVC rigid conduit horizontally along the upper part of the trusses.  And ran a few sections of 2" vertically along trusses down to the attic floor.  Also used a few 'leftover' sections of the 3/4" PVC RNC down into individual rooms.  The sections don't all align and there are gaps between the sections, but it provides a good length-wise chase for LV cables.  And it used up a bunch of pieces of RNC leftover from other jobs.
 
wkearney99 said:
I suppose it would depend on the number of elements in the bundle and the distance between the rings.  That and the kind of cables.  Some being considerably heavier than others (like multi-conductor mini coax).  For the runs I've got there's probably 6 CAT5E, four 18/4 and a mini coax (which will likely never get used).  I've seen some wiring plants with a lot more jammed into bundles and have wondered about the potential weight issues.
All has to be considered. A good TDR can pick out where the cables are stapled or secured, same as if they're hung.
 
Over time, you'll find the stuff with improper support pretty easily. Then again, most houses don't have the sheer volume of cable of a large network plant and generally the cabling is separated out by system. Even the most overactive enthusiast doesn't have the volume of cable most of the big boys run for a Crestron or Elan install.
 
Due to the layout of the attic, and having multiple termination points, I doubt any hook will have more than ten cables, and most of those will probably be 22/4 security wire.
 
Although not ideal, because the house wasn't designed 25 years ago with a good place for a single wiring closet, I have two enclosures for stuff related to the M1G (one near each end of the house, with a data bus cable running between them). All telephone wires are terminated in an enclosure in the attic. LAN stuff is terminated in another closet that contains the cable modem (currently), DSL modem, router, and a WAP. Having all of these different termination points causes the cabling to "fan out" pretty fast instead of having a lot of cables running from one end of the house to another.
 
Maybe what I should have done was built a closet in the attic and run an HVAC duct to it.
 
Platinum Tools (the EZ-RJ45 guys) make some polypropylene covered J-hooks that look like be bendable enough to allow creative mounting. I'm gonna pick up a couple of them locally tomorrow and see if they will work for me.
 
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