How to Add Cable to a Room

How to Add Cable to a Room
Published: Feb 5, 2010
Updated: Nov 20, 2021
2 minute read

When you invest in the materials such as coaxial cable and a cable television signal splitter, remember that better quality equipment will produce a higher resolution image.

Things You Will Need

  • Tape measure
  • Beige masking tape
  • Pencil
  • Power drill
  • 5/8 inch drill bit
  • Utility knife
  • Coaxial cable
  • Cable television signal splitter
  1. Determine where your cable service enters your home. This is usually the basement or the attic. To do this start at your cable box on your house, and follow the wire until you see where it enters your home. Once you trace it into your home, you should see the wire hooked up to another cable that enters a room. If you have multiple connections coming from your cable wire, then there will be a splitter on the wire and multiple coaxial cables connected to it.

  2. Map the straightest path from your cable connection to the room you want to go to. If you have a basement connection and you have a first floor room you would like to wire, then you can come up through the basement floor into the room. But if you have a basement connection and a second floor room, then you will need to become creative at how you can drop the wire from the second floor to the first floor without needing to do major remodeling. Use masking tape and a pencil to mark where your you will be drilling.

  3. Drill holes in the floors as per your markings by using a power drill equipped with a 5/8 inch drill bit. To drill through a rug make a small cut in the rug with a utility knife, and then drill down through the cut.

  4. Drop the coaxial cable through the holes in the floor until it reaches the connection in the basement.

  5. Attach a cable television signal splitter to the source cable, and then attach your room cables to the splitter as well. If the cable company has already put a splitter on your signal then just use that.

The Drip Cap

  • Chances are that you have added televisions since you had your cable service installed, and now you have rooms with televisions but no cable service.
  • This is usually the basement or the attic.
  • To do this start at your cable box on your house, and follow the wire until you see where it enters your home.
  • Drill holes in the floors as per your markings by using a power drill equipped with a 5/8 inch drill bit.

Photo Credits

Jupiterimages/Polka Dot/Getty Images

Jupiterimages/Polka Dot/Getty Images

George N. Root III

George N. Root III began writing professionally in 1985. His publishing credits include a weekly column in the "Lockport Union Sun and Journal" along with the "Spectrum," the "Niagara Falls Gazette," "Tonawanda News," "Watertown Daily…

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