Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater bluejeancables?

I like bluejeans and MonoPrice.com

The 250 roll of 12 gauge wire I bought at Lowes was the Woods brand and it cost me $67.00 or $.27/ft ft. It was cheaper for me to buy a full roll and get the 'contractors price' than it was to buy cut lengths, this may be the reason for the $.46/ft as opposed to the $.22/ft price at HD?

The last wire I bought was some 16/4 in wall from a local audio shop at $.28 a foot.

Rick, whenever the dealer installing my wall plates stopped by the house to check out my in wall wiring/cabling job the first thing he did was grab one of the speaker wires and said 'Uh oh ... you should have used oxygen free, in-wall specific speaker wire' 'Oh really? And why is that?' 'Well oxygen free is better cable and specific in wall wires have an outer liner that will not produce fumes if ever caught on fire'.
After a couple of minutes of 'real talk' he finally confessed that what I installed would be perfectly fine, although maybe not politically correct for the industry and 'there's really not any difference between oxygen free and regular wire'. As for the fumes I did address that if the these particular wires were on fire the least of my worries was the fumes produced by the plastic sheathing on a 12 gauge speaker wire. He wholeheartedly agreed.

I agree........................ I think if my house was on fire, the in wall speaker wires would be the least of my concerns. LOL

plenum rated wire is required in spaces that are considered to be a plenum
this wire gives off low smoke and has a higher burning temp than regular wire.it is code in most areas i believe

If you go to one of the home improvement warehouse type stores, check by the low voltage lighting (the small outdoor lights that stick in the ground). These use 12/2 cable that is usually .22 to .28 a foot on 100 ft. rolls.

>>plenum rated wire is required in spaces that are considered to be a plenum

Arrrr, there be the magic words. I went through this whole exercise a year ago. If you are running wires in an area which is part of the air circulation system (and occasionally the space between two studs will be used as cold air return) then you need special wire. Other than that... any wire is good.

sorry to hear that i missed this exercise last year, but one question, (at least for now) if you need special wire when passing near cold air(how you have stated), then is there some special wire to be used if your wire will be passing right next to your radiator?

I have been working on renovations to my Basement home theatre and bought in wall 12 gauge from Home depot (Oxygen free too BTW, not that it matters). It was $0.92 CDN per metre. For our American friends a metre is about 3 and 1/2 feet so that would be about $.26 CDN per foot. Seems like pretty good wire to me and well worth the $$$.