MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - A home improvement tip not involving garages...

If you are ever running low voltage line through your house, whatever the reason may be, here are a few important rules you MUST follow:

1. If you had to run it once, tie a chase line to it. If you, or god forbid the guy after you, has to run another line...it cuts a three hour job into roughly 60 seconds. You may never reap the benefit of doing this, but I promise you'll be cursing up a storm if you don't do it (Murphys law and all that).

2. If you are installing a thermostat, or having someone else install a thermostat, YOU MUST RUN A COMMON. Repeat, YOU MUST RUN A COMMON. I don't care if your current thermostat is battery powered. I don't care if you have that extra Y line to use for now. Things change, and someone is going to wish bad things upon you because you were to lazy to run 6 conductor instead of 4. Run an fucking common. Do it.

3. Leave some slack at either end of your wire run. It's very easy to hide in the wall, and very convenient. If you should say...break a wire...you can just cut off a little more and start over. This would save you the embarrassment when someone else opens your work and sees the magnificent band aid you've applied to a snapped wire in the form of tin foil and electrical tape. This will also prevent an intermittent problem with the furnace from driving the next homeowner nuts for 6 years until he find it...