I'm looking to send speaker wires to a lower level of my house.?

Question

can I run RCA cables and speaker wire along the same channel that my hot water heater chimney flue uses?

Answer 1

No Leo, don't use the Flue, it is full of Carbon monoxide and a danger to your Health. Use the heating ducks or cold air returns, that is the easiest method.

Answer 2

I don't know who gave he who holds the remote a negative mark but he is right.  I don'tknow about the whole insurance thing but he is write about the speaker wires being power wires and sending noice (fancy word for distortion) into the RCA Cables thus interfearing and giving you some static in the picture (you might not see it but it is there).

Answer 3

Running the cables near the chimney flue is OK if the cables will not get too hot.  They shouldn't touch a metal flue pipe because that could melt the insulation.

For speaker wires, I would recommend 16 gauge wire so you don't get too much resistance loss.  If the speakers are 4 ohm, then the 2-way wire resistance should be less than 0.5 ohm.  Resistance will increase with distance, but I assume you are only going 20-30 feet.

What would you be sending via "RCAs"?  If it is video, be aware that you will have significant cable capacitance, and that will degrade video signal quality.   Use the lowest capacitance shielded cable you can find  - which may be RG-6 with a foam dielectric - typically used for CATV.  You have to use type F connectors with RG-6, but can probably find or make F to RCA adapters.

Answer 4

Very bad idea. If your house burns down your insurance company will claim your dangerous wiring spread the fire faster because you put a 'fuse' in place. Without this - the fire department could have saved the house. (or so your insurance company will say when they deny your claim.)

Any wire you put in the wall should be "CL3" or "In-Wall" rated even if you dont run next to a hot chimney.  

You should NOT run power wires (yes - speaker wires are power wires) next to line-level interconnects (the RCA cables).  The power wires will inject noise into the shield of the RCA cables.  The shield can tolerate some signal, but not a lot.

So try to keep them separate.

You can get good Carol 12 ga with CL3 rating from Home Depot or PartsExpress.

You can get in-wall rated RCA wires from BlueJeans.

Answer 5

Not knowing the length of your run I'll generalize the answer. Basically the answer is yes.

RCA Cables-

Over normal run lengths, the amount of signal lost to resistance in the cable is not particularly significant; this is because, even to the extent that resistance causes loss, the loss is linear--it affects all frequencies in the signal equally, and so when the display receives the signal and adjusts its amplitude all of the information is still present regardless of the loss of signal strength. Over reasonable run lengths, approx 100 feet, these losses are still not significant.

I recommend If you are going long distances to make 3 runs for component connections, utilizing RG6 cable and terminating with a decent quality connector.

Speaker cable

Depending on the length of the run, recommend you utilize the largest gage wire your budget can afford and don't splice. The speaker, the length of cable, the cable gage, the amplifier all play a role in how well the signal gets from the amp to the speaker. The heaver the gage wire the less the amp will have to work to push the signal. Example- An 18-Gage cable with a 4-Ohm speaker at 100 feet results in 2.5 dB of loss. A loss of 3 dB would mean that half the amplifier's power is being dissipated by the wire, not the speaker!

I wouldn't use anything less than 14or 16 gage.