Can speaker wire be run under laminate floor?

[dalessandro12]

I am remodeling my family room and setting up a 5.1 system with two rear in ceiling surround sound speakers, front L/R/C and front in ceiling "height" speakers (my house has the in ceilings all pre-wired).

Although I am not looking to do the rear surround "back" speakers at this time, I was thinking about running speaker wire under the floor in the event that I want to add them later. The laminate is not nailed down, so there isn't a risk of hitting the wiring and the back wall is about 25ft from my TV.

Can this be done? Has anyone done this? If ok, any specific wiring that I should use?

 

[jliedeka]

It doesn't sound like a good idea to me. There should be, however, a gap between the floor and the wall that you cover with quarter rounds. There may be room to run speaker wire there. They do make flat speaker wire that can run under carpet. The difference is that after adding the felt pad and carpet it's hard to tell where the wire is.

I'd go with a decent 12 gauge speaker wire just to be on the safe side. I like the Belden stuff from Blue Jeans but any decent 12 gauge wire will do. Try the hardware store if you want to go with something cheaper. 12 ga zip wire should be fairly cheap.

Jim

 

[dalessandro12]

I am going to hide the front L/R speaker wire behind the baseboards and have a little notch cut out for it to run up my stands to the speakers. I was thinking of running 12g wire between the 3/4 gap I need to leave between the wall and the first board (which would actually be below the baseboards). I can easily fit 2 runs of this around my room. I was thinking worse case, I can run it under the boards that are closest to the wall since they won't really see any foot traffic.

 

[highfigh]

I am remodeling my family room and setting up a 5.1 system with two rear in ceiling surround sound speakers, front L/R/C and front in ceiling "height" speakers (my house has the in ceilings all pre-wired).

Although I am not looking to do the rear surround "back" speakers at this time, I was thinking about running speaker wire under the floor in the event that I want to add them later. The laminate is not nailed down, so there isn't a risk of hitting the wiring and the back wall is about 25ft from my TV.

Can this be done? Has anyone done this? If ok, any specific wiring that I should use?

If you have a basement, I strongly recommend running it down to that area and then over to the speaker location. You know that as soon as you install it in a permanent place, the room's arrangement will change, right?

 

[dalessandro12]

If you have a basement, I strongly recommend running it down to that area and then over to the speaker location. You know that as soon as you install it in a permanent place, the room's arrangement will change, right?

I don't have a basement but as far as placement is concerned, my room is mostly windows on one side and a portion of the back wall and open to the kitchen on the other side; I really only have a small portion of the back wall for the speakers.

I honestly don't know that I would get more speakers down the road but I think we all know how addicting this audio thing can be

 

[Rickster71]

You have to leave a gap around a laminate floor for expansion and contraction, so you could run it around there. And cover the gap with shoe or quarter round (like was mentioned earlier.
If the wire is only for surrounds, it a good possibility you could use 14 AWG. (If the length and load isn’t too great. Not much get sent to the back speakers.
To gain more space you could leave out the foam underlay, just around the very edge where you put the wire.

Or run it under the base trim.

 

[m_vanmeter]

it's expensive, but you could also look at "flat wire" to run in the space left around the edges and under the quarter round.

http://www.flatwirestore.com/mm5/AFW.html
http://www.taperwire.com/speakerwire.htm

 

[itschris]

You have to leave a gap around a laminate floor for expansion and contraction, so you could run it around there. And cover the gap with shoe or quarter round (like was mentioned earlier.
If the wire is only for surrounds, it a good possibility you could use 14 AWG. (If the length and load isn’t too great. Not much get sent to the back speakers.
To gain more space you could leave out the foam underlay, just around the very edge where you put the wire.

Or run it under the base trim.

This!

Took the words right out of my mouth... or fingers...

 

[dalessandro12]

Thanks, this is what I was thinking and after looking at my molding, it actually angles out toward the bottom giving me even more room to play with. I am going to run the wire from the receiver around the baseboards and then leave as much extra as I can where I may eventually put the speakers. After doing all that, I may just want to budget in for the speakers!