How do I find speaker wire under drywall?

[rizzo1964]

When my house was built, the builder ran speaker wire throughout the house and I don't have a chart to know where the speaker wire ends. Is there a wire tracer I can rent (don't really want to buy one, but I guess I can) to find the speaker wire? I just have about 6 sets of speaker wires running out of the wall near my stereo but I don't know where the all go.

 

[BMXTRIX]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=97140&item=7523795118&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Not sure about renting, they sell for under 100 bucks and aren't often needed by people not in the business. Ask friends if you can, or if you are buying A/V gear, see if you can ask if a tech will let you borrow one for a day.

 

[MDS]

If you were looking for such a tool at a store, what would you ask for? Is 'Tone and Probe Set' the general term for it?

My house has structured wiring which means cat5 and rg6 cables from every wall plate in every room go to a central wiring closet. Naturally, the installer didn't label anything. Isn't there a similar tool for determining which cable is which? I can figure out which cat5 goes to which room via trial and error taking a phone to each room, but it would be a pain to figure out which rg6 in the wiring closet goes to which room using the same process.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

When my house was built, the builder ran speaker wire throughout the house and I don't have a chart to know where the speaker wire ends. Is there a wire tracer I can rent (don't really want to buy one, but I guess I can) to find the speaker wire? I just have about 6 sets of speaker wires running out of the wall near my stereo but I don't know where the all go.

Call the builder and give him $40 for his (or his electricians) time/gas to come over and put an "x" where the wires terminate. No one is going to do it quicker or more efficiently than he will.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I don't know - if it is a bunch of wires, I would call the installers and ask them to handle the issue. They should know where the wires go and if they are professional at all, the wires should be numbered to mean something. I have about 100 wires pulled in my home and went through some painstaking measures to make sure that I could look at every wire and find out where it goes by a corresponding list.

Then when I shortened and terminated all the wires I put labels on every single wire again, but this time included the actual room name that it went to along with the wire number.

Anyway - if the original installer is not helpful, the toner and probe kit listed will allow you to put a tone on the JACKS in the rooms, then go down to the head end (equipment closet) and wave the probe around the wires until you find exactly which one it belongs to, then mark it.

So, it works both ways. You can identify the cables you have already terminated in rooms, you can trace wires to find out where they end, and you can use it to test wires to make sure they are connected correctly to things like speakers. It is pretty time consuming, but you get the job done right when you are done. You also begin to realize why professional QUALITY installations cost so much money.