How many mudrings do I need...

[nightwalker]

I am looking at same issue of closed or open back box in a new house I am building. My builder uses a specific guy to prewire all his low voltage stuff and I took a look at some work he did on a current house under construction. Here link is a picture of how he looped the wire thru a box to prewired a single gang box for 2 ea Cat5e and one RG6Q. He told me he did it this way so the sheetrock guys will not tear up his wire with their Roto zip tools later when they cut out the opening for the box. He said he can then fish out the wire he needs later.

I told him I would prefer open back boxes and he said he can do it any way I want but he still needs to secure the wire ends to keep the sheet rock guys from doing strange things to his wire.

Any opinions on his approach to prewire?

He has the RG6 and Cat5 wrapped as tight as it should ever go and it's not even connected yet. Right there he should be using a ring, not a box. I agree if there is going to be some electronics installed a box is some protection, however for just terminated wire, especially RG6 and Cat5 it should never be kinked up in a box. Aside from that he should have 2 RG6's in a TV location. If the customer goes with Sat service and wants to use a DVR he'll need two feeds to be able to record on channel and watch something else.

 

[PaulD]

I know he has the cables too tight and that is why I wanted to go with an open back box (not mudrings) to allow more generous cable bends. In some locations, that house does have 2 RG6Q but I only plan for a single RG6Q because it will be my house and I do not have plans for Sat service. I also found some other spots where his cable was pulled too tight around a corner and I will work with him to make sure he installs the way I want.

 

[upstatemike]

I am surprised nobody has suggested using 4" square boxes with either a single gang or double gang adapter ring (aka plaster ring). This lets you standardize on one box type and you can get them extra deep for maximum room inside the box. I would place one on each side of the wall cavity with all cat5 runs pulled to one and all RG6 runs to the other. Of course I only use metal boxes but I assume you can get the same thing in plastic if you wanted to for some reason.

 

[lorenkoeman]

I notice that you are pulling a lot of wire. I am planning on doing the same, at least to the locations that are tough to get back to. I am not planning on terminating it all though. If you are using coax x 5 for your video, I wouldn't expect you will use all 5 Cat5e for example. I am just leaving these in the wall unterminated. Saves a fair amont of $ and time.

I would think this might be true for boxes as well. I can't imagine there would be more than a couple places in your house you would ever use more than 8 keystones at once. If at some point you switch from the 5 coax to Cat5e with baluns for example, you could just remove the coax terminations from the faceplate.

If worse comes to worse, I wouldn't think it to be all that difficult to cut out some drywall and the old box and put in an new larger old work box.

 

[beelzerob]

I notice that you are pulling a lot of wire. I am planning on doing the same, at least to the locations that are tough to get back to. I am not planning on terminating it all though. If you are using coax x 5 for your video, I wouldn't expect you will use all 5 Cat5e for example. I am just leaving these in the wall unterminated. Saves a fair amont of $ and time.

I would think this might be true for boxes as well. I can't imagine there would be more than a couple places in your house you would ever use more than 8 keystones at once. If at some point you switch from the 5 coax to Cat5e with baluns for example, you could just remove the coax terminations from the faceplate.

If worse comes to worse, I wouldn't think it to be all that difficult to cut out some drywall and the old box and put in an new larger old work box.

Ya, I left all of the TV wires buried, except for the greatroom. There I put 2 2-gang mudrings, just because I know they'll get immediate use. 1 2-gang is for the speaker wire connections, and 1 for the component in/out and network. I actually need 1 more also (another component run), but that can wait for old-work status.

I still like the flexibility of 1-gang mudrings instead, but in this case, at the greatroom wall, I think I'll appreciate the extra workspace of a 2-gang opening into the wall.