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Run smurf tubing throughout your home. It's essentially conduit that goes behind the wall so you can fish wires back through the tubing if you ever needed to. Installing them on places like hard to reach POE security cameras, gang boxes behind the TV, surround sound that needs hidden wires. This is best completed after electrical and plumbing so it doesn't get in the way. You just have to make sure you catch it before insulation and drywall. Ask you builder if they can run this stuff to main areas of your house. The best thing you could have is a network room where all the low voltage wiring can be centrally located.

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[pgoody]

As an ATT install tech, seeing conduit is like finding water in the desert

[andrewredding]

Don't forget to mention to add a pull string with your cable pull so you can easily add cables in the future. Have saved myself tons of trouble that way, just as long as you remember to add a NEW pull string when adding more🤣

[yeabutwecouldbefreer]

As a person who owned a network and cabling company, whenever I found Smurf tube it was usually run by an electrician (or his teenage helper) and most of them had over 360 deg of 90's making it almost useless for preventing attic work. If you want future-proof run 1 pure copper cat6a and 1 single mode fiber. You can run both for around 50c a foot. if you get a good deal you can probably halve that. It should be good for about 20 years or more. (entire countries run terabits over 1 singlemode fiber).

[athenarocar]

I'm redoing a 60s ranch. All insulation is being replaced from r11 to r15 Rockwool and upgrading to sheetrock vs 1/4" paneling. I decided to add Smurf tubes to run internet and tv cables to future proof the house. Best $100 I spent. About a week after we finished a bedroom one of the brand-new cat6 lines stopped working... It was a cheap line off Amazon. Well we just pulled a new one right through the tubes and we were back to business in 15 minutes. Best decision ever! But, I am going to say... I learned this from Matt reisinger on the build show. I highly recommend it. Also, go ahead and add sound insulation to all interior walls. Don't skimp out on comfort and peace to save a few bucks.

[fredriksjoblom]

Swedish electician here. This is how every house is built in northern europe, smurf tubing is supplied as empty tubes or with pre-run cables inside so it is just as quickly installed as any cable. I can run wires to pretty much any part of a house with no other tools than my wire cutter/stripper and a long piece of wire, and the entire process is completely non destructive/intrusive. I can not for the life of me understand why you would do it any other way, and every issue raised by other commenters are due to faulty installation. In sweden we are used to installing smurf tubing and we dont have these problems. Few building elements work as intended when you don't know how to install them correctly.

[lidlett]

As a Master electrician I hate smurff tube. But it does have its worth. There are things that must be taken into account when using it. If it's ran for spare raceway. Then it's most likely going to need to have fire caulking put in one end. In your example. A raceway from attic to closet. During a fire becomes a chimney which draws fire into the attic.

I ran several thousand feet of it when I built my house 30 years ago....plus, I ran all of my electrical in EMT. Best thing I ever did! It future proofed my house!👍

[ZeeWatcher]

This is used all over the med and North Africa where wires are pulled through the tubes decades later if need be.

A good rule is to not fill the tubes beyond 80% but ideally you'd stay 70% of less.

I love this stuff. I recently worked on a house in Malta built in 1980. We used these tubes to run new wiring and added extra tubes for additional cabling.

I'm glad the US is catching up.

[BronkBuilt]

I had my builder add a few from my basement up to my 2nd story attic way back in 2001. Builder said first time he had ever heard of doing it and said he would recommend it on every house he built after. I only ended up using it about 3 times but it was so easy to run the cables and not cutting into drywall at points to feed the cables through 2x4's. Huge recommendation from me.

[Grente]

This is standard practice in europe. You can pull ethernet, fiberglass, coax or 230v through that. It costs next to nothing when still under construction but will save you a lot of headaches and costs down the line.

[kevinmctarsney]

I had my builder run two in the middle of my house and running vertically on each end of the structure with covered turn outs on each of three floors + attic. All landed in closets and are easily accessible. That was 20 years ago He used pvc and at the time; thought it was a strange request but accommodated it. Been a lifesaver when running cat cable between router and high speed switches.

[ThinkingLeaner]

Externally, I laid conduit underneath poured cement patio and walkways to enable future wiring projects. Equally, smoother internal flexible tubing WITHOUT RIDGES would be easier to pull wire.

[locomanjim]

I put in a 1.5" pvc from my basement to my attic in my townhouse back in the 90"s to run my alarm wireing, then added cat cables and tv wiring. best thing i ever did!

[-old-Forthischet]

I'm a retired telecom tech. When you run long sections of flexible conduit, either plastic or metal, it's easy when new and have easy access but later the bends make it really difficult to "fish" because of the ribbing.

I once did a service call at a two story house that was being remodeled. The customer went through the expense of installing commercial grade EMT conduit for everything, high and low power service. It was a breeze to rewire his house.

[gracegwozdz]

Great idea. I have it in the wall installed as an afterthought between upper floor and basement for cables.

[alberthartl]

Have been doing this in California for 30 years. For line voltage make sure it is code compliant ENT conduit. (There are both US [blue] & Canadian [grey] manufacturers.) For telcom cables it is typical to use the orange tubing.

[Chico_Maciel]

Connecting all the electrical stuff using those conduits throughout the whole house is mandatory in most countries. I can't understand why they aren't in the US too.

[ModsandHacks]

AT&T Technician here 👋 seeing that conduit going to the smart panel makes me the happiest person in the world haha I wish more builders did this!

[djmcnamer]

Great idea. I have fiber from the road into my house through surf tube.

[briansalak]

I work for an ISP who is Fiber to the home and we prefer to go indoor since outdoor units will be a thing of the past eventually.

It is great to use because all companies will be going fiber optic directly into the homes eventually. The one thing they all forget to do when installing it is not securing it to the rafters & leaving it laying on the rafters causes too much resistance. When you have too much resistance on it you end up having to go into the attic to cut it and splice the inter duct back together. Hard corners also are not a friend to flexible conduit.

Don’t ever use Carflex as an entrance conduit. It has too much flex and crimps in 90 degree angles.

I used 1-1/2” schedule 40 conduit to my server cabinet where the drop from the street goes directly to. This allowed me not to have any communication equipment on the outside of the home which also keeps thieves from cutting your communication line in the event of a break in. It wouldn’t matter though if they cut the main power line unless you put it on a battery back up.