Federated Handy People

We live in a modern world, but the buildings we inhabit weren’t built thinking life would be like this. Computers, and networks, and connectivity, OH MY!

Most of us want our modern devices to work, but we also want high-tech things hidden from view. In this situation, the small bedroom that was converted to an office was as far as it could be from the Internet connection in the basement. (a.k.a. the WiFi sucks) It’s not much of an office if your computer can’t connect to the rest of the world.

One of the very, very many solutions is to install a wired connection from the basement to the upstairs office. Sometimes you can get it done with the Flexi Drill, sometimes you can’t. It’s always better to cut away less drywall to make a job go faster and look better. The big problem, in this case, was there wasn’t one wall going from the basement to the office because the kitchen wall wasn’t centered under the office wall. This made it a problem because tools aren’t made just for this situation and I did not want to cut away ceiling drywall. My solution was to blow a string to where I needed it. 😉

This is the office entrance.

The holes in the wall are there to receive the two blue Old-Work electrical boxes on the floor.

My idea was to use the two vacuums in reverse to blow the string across the ceiling to the kitchen wall where I had already pulled the wires up from the basement.

The orange string went through one path so it could wander freely.

The hope was the air would go toward the bigger hole in the wall which was the kitchen.

If you think this won’t work, we agree. I didn’t think it would work either, so I hedged my bet…

I taped a fully inflated sandwich bag to the end of the string before tossing it in the hole in front of the blow hoses.

I guess it was like fly fishing?

It wasn’t pretty, but it was just crazy enough to work.

The client only needed the Internet wire to run up there.

But, for a few dollars more, they could get a lot more value out of the same job.

So now their office has a direct Cat-5e high-speed Ethernet connection to the office, a battery-backed-up power source for sensitive computer equipment, and a way to watch cable TV in the room.

In this case, a WiFi repeater was connected so that there was also great WiFi upstairs too.