Home Theater Wiring Help

[florad]

Hello. I am in the process of studding out my basement. In one corner of the room will be my home theater. I went a little crazy on monoprice.com and have purchased hundreds of dollars of cable to be run throughout the basement - everything from CAT6 to speaker to hdmi & other audio & video. I'm planning on having a cut out in the wall adjacent to where my tv will sit and have shelves to house all my components so they are flush with the wall facing the tv. Behind this wall is the furnace and will be unfinished, and next to the components is where I'm having my "hub", or where all the wires will be. Here are my questions - what would be an ideal way to organize all these wires? My current thought is to place some particle board on a hinge and organize all my wires through gang boxes with specific wall plates that will be attached to the particle board, that way I can open up the particle board and get behind it if need be. I have lots of wall plates with 6-hole openings that I can put, say, 6 coaxial cable jack keystones in and organize all my satellite lines. Then I can do the same for video and speaker wire. Anyone have a better idea on how to do this, or does this sound ok? Secondly, when I'm running all these lines, how careful do I need to be about coming in close proximity to electrical lines? Sorry for the long-winded questions, but any help would be appreciated!

[Jbald87]

So are you going to have the components in the same room of the furnace?

[florad]

The components will be in a room with the furnace, but they will be encased in a cabinet that I can open and close from either the front or the back of the cabinet to keep as much dust out as possible. Hope that helps.

[gearyt]

do a google on "structured wiring"... you'll find lottsa goodies

[BrettLee3232]

sounds good man!!! i would keep all your low volt away from your electrical......you will be safe as long as you dont run your lines parallel with the electric as long as you dont run 3-5' parallel with your electric you will be fine. Always drill a seperate hole for your low volt wires. If possible run the low volt through a diffrent side of the stud as electric. 1 other thought is to run flex to each location of your low volt. Then you can run the speaker & cat5 later if you want, or take it out & run new wire. Someone on this board did do that & it looked really good....Also when you staple your wires make sure there AWAY FROM ANY DRYWALL NAILS!!!! IT WILL SAVE YOU A BIG HEADACHE LATER!!! But other than that just make sure all your wires look neat. Use designated boxes for your speaker wires like the ones at monoprice with the binding post. I have a few pics of the wall plates i used in my HT gallery. Not very good pics but you get the idea haha. Also dont run any of your wires above gas lines, try to keep them away if at all possible. Also staple the wires away from any place where they can get pinched. Use staples or nails. Hope this helps!!! If you have any questions just ask!!!
PEACEEEEEEEEEE

[florad]

Well now that you mention it - I do have a couple follow up questions. What is the best kind of gang box to get to house the face plates? I just went to Lowes and purchased some typical ones, but then I heard of ones that have no backs so the wires can be brought in easily. Which would you prefer and where can I find them? Also, I have lots of single wall plates, but I didn't find any that had the 3-wide gang plates that you show in your pictures. That would be perfect for what I need behind my tv. Where did you find those? Thanks!