Hi Valueman,
The most cost effective way to future proof your wall cavities is with smurf tube, i.e. Carlon flexible plastic conduit, especially if you anticipate only low voltage cabling in the future. You'll probably need to check, or better yet have your electrical contractor check with the building officials to see what is acceptable in your jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions have fire issues here. Especially if you are going from the main part of the house out to the garage, considered a different occupancy and thus requiring firewall protection. For future work, I always recommend running a pull tape through the conduit to be used by you to assure the practicality of making a pull later. As well as provide a convient means to install the cable at a later date. Greenlee makes a great pull tape with foot markers so you can actually tell how long the run will eventually be.
As an aside, I remember one of my jobs where my electrician had to run the phone line from our T.I. buildout, er a new boutique in a mall, and the telcos main board. The run was 200' and sparky ran into an obstruction about 20' out from out facade. Nothing he could do helped to get past the obstruction. We tried muratic acid in case some grout had inadvertently gotten into the conduit and we tried vacuuming and every manner of retrieval. Nothing worked. Finally, we had to call in the mall owner's original electrical contractor to sort it out. After tearing out the paver sidewalk and trenching to the pipe, and chopping same, we discovered an abandoned "mouse" of the sort used to suck pulltapes that had been abandoned by a frustrated mechanic a couple of years prior. Needless to say, a very expensive bit of folly, that. My point is, and I do have one, that you must test the pull tapes before the sheet rock goes up.
HTH, Ray |
