[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Start in the ceiling. Drill a small hole with an ordinary bit through the ceiling drywall near the exterior wall. This is just so you know exactly where you are working.
Try to center your work between two studs. Use a studfinder (a real one; not the kind that just looks for nails).
[/QUOTE]
No need. Using a tape measure, I determined which 4x8 sheet of plywood in the attic was the proper one to pull up. I sawed as described in a previous post, then began pulling nails. As this panel is directly beneath the only window in the attic, and as the previous owner clearly left the window open during rainstorms on more than one occasion, this panel was already in poor shape, with water stains, some swelling damage, and many nails too rusty to do anything but pop their heads when politely engaged with a nail puller.
In other words, the plywood should thank me for pulling it up. Regardless of the whole cable issue.
As someone posited, the fish was indeed doubled, tripled, and bent around between the two joists and the ceiling of the bedroom below for about 20 feet worth of cable. As DefyingGravity noted, I was not aware it was possible to bend a fish tape that badly. Literally, at one point there was a 90 degree dogleg left, 3 inches of tape, then a 90 degree dogleg back to the right, so firmly created that I had to straighten it by hand before it would come near the exit hole without shying back.
But I got the fish tape back within 5 minutes, which I consider at least a minor victory.
In any case, back to knowing where I was - after pulling up the plywood and pulling back the insulation between the last joist and the wall, I found (aside from lots of, ah, kinky fish tape) the romex from the outlet below ascending up, through a spaded hole, and across the attic. I should point out, when I began, I chose to place the drop plate location on the other side of the stud that the power outlet used for this computer was located. I couldn’t find my stud finder (my workshop is a huge, huge, huge mess) so I assumed that (naturally) the outlet box was nailed to a stud, then I knocked on the drywall an inch up and to either side and made my best guess as to where the stud was by sound. I cautiously made a small hole on my best guess as to the other side of that stud, cautiously poked my finger in to verify my guess, and upon finding I was correct pretended I’d been sure all along of how brilliantly right I was.
The point is, seeing the romex come up tells me yes, this is the right place and hey, if I was lucky I should find my drill bit a few inches to the right.
No such luck yet, as such. per se.
There is a 2x6 or 2x8 board that adjoins the outer wall of the house, then the whaddayacallum, stringers?, that run perpendicular to the joists and to which the ceiling gypsum board is connected to, then the gypsum.
The romex is drilled through that board. (Well, the hole through which the romex runs, but you know what I meant). My drill bit is not. It may or may not be poking around somewhere below the board, visible poking through the gypsum, but I could not easily see, and before I could go look for my auto repair mirror (you know, the little mirror on the extending rod that you can swivel around on a ball joint) DefyingGravity got back home with Wendy’s. So I stopped working, and haven’t gotten back to it yet (I’m currently on jury duty, which is less amenable to weak excuses than work is).
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
From the attic side use the 5/8 spade bit to drill through the top plate. This is usually two stacked 2x4s. Drill the hole on the side of the top plate toward the interior wall. You want access to the plane between the drywall and the insulation backing.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, this is my plan, as soon as I verify I can’t just grab the old bit. And as soon as I find my spade bit. You won’t believe this, but I had it 3 or 4 days ago, and have since, ah, lost it. In my workshop, not in a wall, I swear.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Use the studfinder to find the (putative) horizontal fireblock.
[/QUOTE]
Excellent idea. And I just found my stud finder, while looking for my spade bit. I’m still not convinced there’s a solid fire block versus the ‘X’ stringers I’ve seen elsewhere, though.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Use the fishtape from the attic side and thread it in the plane behind the drywall but in front of the insulation, dropping it directly down so you can find it in the cutout hole above the fireblock. Tie a string or wire to the fishtape and pull the string back up into the attic.
[/QUOTE]
Right. That was my plan, once my drill had neatly punched a hole into the attic. I had a coil of pull string standing by for use.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Finish the terminus of each end of the cable and get the little woman online.
[/QUOTE]
Careful, she can hear you.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Figure out a way to get sex out of it–Congratulatory, Make-up (see above) or Gratitude sex might all be in order here, depending on the circumstances.
[/QUOTE]
I WOULD NEVER TREAT MY WIFE WITH SUCH DISRESPECT AS TO IMPLY THAT SEX WAS A GOOD TO BE BARTERED FOR WITH MY SERVICES, WHICH BY RIGHTS ARE HERS IN ANY CASE.
(She can hear me, too)
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Leave whatever that thing was you left in the wall, in the wall.
[/QUOTE]
If I so much as sniff it, it will be mine; oh yes, it will be mine.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Post back with your results (of the project; not the sex).
[/QUOTE]
I did comment to SWMBO that, given the expanding scope and difficulty of both this task and various other honeydo items handled over the weekend, that I felt my contract required renegotiation, and that we had passed the point of deserving good sex and were well into the area of deserving a threesome.
A) She was not amused
B) Having said that, are you still not interested in hearing if I make any progress fishing that bit out of the wall?
