Sealing holes for wire runs

[PaulD]

How do you deal with the holes in the plates where wire (Cat5, cable, etc) is run from a heated/cooled area (my wiring closet) into an non controlled area such as the attic? I am not there yet on my new house but from what I have seen on other new houses in my area, they are using spray foam to plug the holes after the wire has been run. Don't know if that is a building code issue or not or if it just an energy conservation move to cut down on air flow. Once the foam is in place, it kills your ability to run more wire later unless you dig out the foam. Although this not a major issue on most wire runs, I want to keep my main feeder holes into my wiring closet open for more wire later.

Is there any device, plug or method that can be used to deal with this during the building process such that I have the option to pull more wire later if desired?

 

[heffneil]

Here in Florida all the homes are generally metal studs. They use those plastic grommets to protect the wire, but then they spray foam the hole. I actually found that you can break out the spray foam pretty easily and then get through the hole. I have done it a number of times. The foam is pretty rigid and expands pretty well so there is a nice ball of it outside the hole you can pry off and push the other half down. Well thats my experience anyway.

Good luck!

Neil

 

[Steve]

How about putting conduit/pipe in and foaming around it, then just hand fit a cap on the ends?

 

[beelzerob]

The foam is for fireproofing, so a fire in the wall won't have a chimney into the attic.

Here is what I recommend, based on my recent wiring experiences, listed from worst to best...

+ Dig out the foam later. It can be a big pain, especially if you have 3 or so boards to get through. The foam tends to squish, so digging out can be tough, especially if you only have access to the top or bottom of the hole. I had to deal with this because my enthusiastic wife sealed up some holes we hadn't used yet.... a couple minutes with a long screwdriver usually managed to do it, but I was able to pull it out from below, also.
+ Use fiberglass insulation in your holes instead of foam. I don't know if local codes might require foam, but here, we just had to put SOMETHING in there, so we used bits of the fiberglass to plug it, which is trivial to remove if you need to.
+ Conduit, of course....the best choice. Plug it with a wad of fiberglass insulation, or an end cap.

 

[Photon]

I use latex caulk. I pump a generous amount into a heavy-duty zip-lock bag. Seal the bag using care to get the air out. Roll the bag between my hands to form a tapered cylinder. Slide the cylinder in the opening or conduit. As the plug forms itself around the wires, it jams itself in place. If you can do it without breaking the bag, it will be fairly easy to extract when it is time to add cable. I got this idea from a guy at work who uses a condom. He inserts most of it into the conduit and then sticks the plastic end of the caulk tube into the condom and fills it. He uses a twist tie to seal it so the caulk doesn't set.

I'd rather use a pipe cap as some suggest, but it is too much trouble to cut it to fit around the cables, and once cut I'm not so sure it would stop the chimney effect in the event of a fire.

 

[nightwalker]

I use latex caulk. I pump a generous amount into a heavy-duty zip-lock bag. Seal the bag using care to get the air out. Roll the bag between my hands to form a tapered cylinder. Slide the cylinder in the opening or conduit. As the plug forms itself around the wires, it jams itself in place. If you can do it without breaking the bag, it will be fairly easy to extract when it is time to add cable. I got this idea from a guy at work who uses a condom. He inserts most of it into the conduit and then sticks the plastic end of the caulk tube into the condom and fills it. He uses a twist tie to seal it so the caulk doesn't set.

I'd rather use a pipe cap as some suggest, but it is too much trouble to cut it to fit around the cables, and once cut I'm not so sure it would stop the chimney effect in the event of a fire.

I'm not sure it's exactly to code but at home i use what i've always called duct seal. It's sort of a clay like stuff that you use to plug holes. It molds nicely around wire and is easy to get back out when i need to add wires.

 

[beelzerob]

I'm not sure it's exactly to code but at home i use what i've always called duct seal. It's sort of a clay like stuff that you use to plug holes. It molds nicely around wire and is easy to get back out when i need to add wires.

Night, sorry to hijack, but I'm looking for something to hold a magnet in place in a 1/2" square area, and something moldable like clay sounds perfect....is that stuff resistant to aging and drying? It'll be in the sash of a window, so it's important that it doesn't either melt out or crumble out.

 

[Sacedog]

The foam is for fireproofing, so a fire in the wall won't have a chimney into the attic.

Actually, most spray foam is flamable, and is used for insulating only. In order to comply with fire codes for sealing holes into certain types of areas, you need to use "Fire Caulk". This is very commonly used in commercial construction for sealing holes into "1-hour rated" areas, such as electrical rooms and the MPOE. My garage will be 1-hour rated (in order to aviod putting fire sprinklers throughout my house), so I will need to use fire caulk to seal any openings that I make for wire.

Here is an example:

http://cableorganizer.com/3m-fire-protecti...rier-cp25wb.htm

 

[Photon]

The building inspector for the city where I work requires fire caulk in our office spaces as Sacedog referenced. The building inspector for the area where my house is accepts ordinary latex caulk for my residence. I'm happy to be able to use the ordinary stuff as it is much less messy. Some experiments in my backyard BBQ area convinced me I'm not putting my family at risk with the ordinary stuff.

I think the only thing that really matters at all is how one's building inspector feels about it.

 

[beelzerob]

Of course, all standard "depending on your local code" cavaets apply to what I posted....and then there's the added issue of if you're going to take it to a higher level than code requires.

In our case, the foam was enough to placate the inspector. No one in our house used the caulk (although I think I saw some on the wire for the HVAC controller, amusingly enough), even the electrician used just pieces of standard fiberglass insulation to plug his holes.

 

[nightwalker]

I'm not sure it's exactly to code but at home i use what i've always called duct seal. It's sort of a clay like stuff that you use to plug holes. It molds nicely around wire and is easy to get back out when i need to add wires.

Night, sorry to hijack, but I'm looking for something to hold a magnet in place in a 1/2" square area, and something moldable like clay sounds perfect....is that stuff resistant to aging and drying? It'll be in the sash of a window, so it's important that it doesn't either melt out or crumble out.

It will age and crack a bit with age yes. Have you tried an adhesive caulk? those are more resistant to drying out and cracking and might be better suited to your application.

 

[beelzerob]

It will age and crack a bit with age yes. Have you tried an adhesive caulk? those are more resistant to drying out and cracking and might be better suited to your application.

I'm not sure if that will meet my needs....

Basically, I have a 1/2" square hole, the bottom of which is the end of a metal rail. The magnet I'm putting in there is cylinder shaped, and I need it to point a specific direction. It holds to the metal rail, but due to the shape of the metal, or neighboring metal, the cylinder wants to turn and point the wrong way. So I need something that will hold the cylinder magnet in the orientation I want. If the adhesive caulk is viscous enough, then maybe it would hold the cylinder in the right orientation long enough to harden. However, I am leary about putting any kind of adhesive on the sash, as if I get messy with it....well, it would solve at least one security issue.

I'm leaning more towards finding some kind of dense foam I can cut into a square and then hollow out a hole for the cylinder to fit in, and then just wedging that in there.

Thanks for the info...now back to the originally scheduled post...

 

[Cheap Engineer]

It will age and crack a bit with age yes. Have you tried an adhesive caulk? those are more resistant to drying out and cracking and might be better suited to your application.

I'm not sure if that will meet my needs....

Basically, I have a 1/2" square hole, the bottom of which is the end of a metal rail. The magnet I'm putting in there is cylinder shaped, and I need it to point a specific direction. It holds to the metal rail, but due to the shape of the metal, or neighboring metal, the cylinder wants to turn and point the wrong way. So I need something that will hold the cylinder magnet in the orientation I want. If the adhesive caulk is viscous enough, then maybe it would hold the cylinder in the right orientation long enough to harden. However, I am leary about putting any kind of adhesive on the sash, as if I get messy with it....well, it would solve at least one security issue.

I'm leaning more towards finding some kind of dense foam I can cut into a square and then hollow out a hole for the cylinder to fit in, and then just wedging that in there.

Thanks for the info...now back to the originally scheduled post...

You might want to try hot glue. It is pretty easy to clean up and it dries quick. I've used it before for sticking magnets on things and it works really well. You can even get high temp glue if you are worried about high temps, but you might need a different gun for it.

 

[beelzerob]

You might want to try hot glue. It is pretty easy to clean up and it dries quick. I've used it before for sticking magnets on things and it works really well. You can even get high temp glue if you are worried about high temps, but you might need a different gun for it.

That's a pretty good suggestion.... We have a hot glue gun...in storage. I can probably wait until we move in to secure all those, as I won't be checking the window open/close status until then of course. Hopefully the glue gun keeps its heat well, because I'm going to have to hit about 20 windows across the house, and that would be a lot of unplugging and plugging in.

I have gorilla glue, and I've used that to secure other magnets (though those magnets weren't being acted upon by metal), it's just the drying time is a problem...and probably the cold too.

 

[nightwalker]

You might want to try hot glue. It is pretty easy to clean up and it dries quick. I've used it before for sticking magnets on things and it works really well. You can even get high temp glue if you are worried about high temps, but you might need a different gun for it.

That's a pretty good suggestion.... We have a hot glue gun...in storage. <_< I can probably wait until we move in to secure all those, as I won't be checking the window open/close status until then of course. Hopefully the glue gun keeps its heat well, because I'm going to have to hit about 20 windows across the house, and that would be a lot of unplugging and plugging in.

I have gorilla glue, and I've used that to secure other magnets (though those magnets weren't being acted upon by metal), it's just the drying time is a problem...and probably the cold too.

I've used the calk for such things, what you will have to do is give it some setup time with the magnet in place being held by something. After it dries it's like a rubber. I've not had much luck with hot glue, in the summer the heat makes it tend to lose it's hold. I didn't know there was a high temp hot glue though.