Plenum cable for cold air return?

[politics123]

The bigger issue I think is from the sound of it, his whole basement is a plenum.

Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about that. It seems the cold air return space should be sealed off after the furnace duct return. I'm hesitant to do that in case it was meant to be left open, but it doesn't seem as if there would be much of a draw from the family room with it open. Any ideas?

I also think that from the sound of it, you could pretty easily find another spot along the parallel wall to drill up from the basement and into the family room. Same wall, but different location, and therefore not in the air duct - although you might need to seal the space between the two joists somewhere after the air return so as to not put the wire in the duct again.

Okay, you guys aren't going to let me get away with running non-plenum cable through the cold air return no matter what I do. You're right that I can move over a couple of joists, but will have to open up the family room wall to get access to the space since the basement is finished under the family room with no easy access. But, I'm pretty handy with patching drywall, so I'll do it the right way and avoid that nagging feeling that I've put my family at additional risk. :unsure: And, no plenum premium.

Again, thanks for the input. Btw, we probably don't want to conduct a poll on how many people actually do run regular non-plenum cable through their ducts and cold air returns, do we? I bet it would be a significant number.

Not too much of a premium if it saves your life. The problem with breaking code is that, not only are you risking your life (I guess you can decide that on your own), but unless you rip the stuff out of the plenum, you are risking the people that buy your house (and so-forth), which isn't fair, since they don't really get a say in the matter.