Wiring chases, IE fishing walls, etc+ Cougar 24.4 5th

[Wet_Coast]

Hi all, I am wondering if anyone out there has had experience fishing wiring into the walls/floors/ceiling of a Cougar 24.4 5th wheel of which I am about to take possession.

I will be adding:
Solar system
A few HAM radios, so both decent amount of power and coax for
antennas.
Maybe solar and antennas in the same run?
And stuff I haven't thought of yet.
I might be smart to do a few runs of conduit if needed. I would
like to future proof as I go as well.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks, Rick

[Darryl_Rita]

Up and down is easy enough on inside walls,near impossible to do on outside walls. Front to back, you're looking at running through cupboards or other hidden areas.

[me2]

I found a natural wiring plenum in my trailer and used it to feed the solar from the roof to the basement. My trailer is a Chaparral 355.

My plenum was in the wall beside the shower, where the trailer control panel was located. (Battery level, tank levels, pump switch, etc.) I found it by removing the screws holding the control panel and looking behind it.

My plenum runs from the ceiling to the basement. It has all the wires for the control panel, plus the radio and TV antenna coaxes and speaker wires which fed into the ceiling.

To use it for solar, I drilled a hole in the roof and fed my solar cables down it.

I've also fished wires in my ceiling. By removing the vents and speakers, there are a lot of access holes to pull wires with.

Good luck.

[bpounds]

Any interior wall is probably pretty good for chasing from the roof down. If it is an interior wall above the basement, you're golden. I have 2 such walls in my Cougar.

I just chased a cable for solar from roof to basement that way, and a serial cable for a monitor from basement to near the control panel up a different wall. Couldn't have been easier.

I already had a wire fish tape. I went to Harbor Freight and bought a set of fiberglass rods also for fishing wires. It is a set of about 10 pieces, each a foot long, and they screw together to create whatever length you need. In some cases these work better than a coil fish tape, because they naturally want to stay straight, but flex if you need it. Less than $10 for the set.

I wouldn't even try it in an exterior wall.

[allen8106]

From my experience when I installed solar in my rig your only options are under the floor or above the ceiling and above the ceiling is limited.

[kellertx5er]

donn0128 wrote:
Sorry, its not real practical. 2x2 walls dont leave much room for large holes. As for the solar? Thats pretty doable. Figure out where you want to mount your controller, fish the wires down from a hole in the roof. I actually was able to run them down next to a holding tank vent pipe. So all I needed to do was cut a hole in the wall, feed the wires down, connect to the controller, and then feed the wires down to the converter.

Your response seems to contradict itself. I guess it is only practical to fish wires for solar.

[DiskDoctr]

An advantage to most campers is the ability to run wires from underneath to access just about any point you want through the floor. Roof/ceiling...challenging.

If you use quality conduit underneath, no problems!

[TXiceman]

Most are laminated walls and you cannot fish things up the exterior wall. Use the basement and find areas to get into cabinets, etc.

Ken
KE5DFR

[donn0128]

Sorry, its not real practical. 2x2 walls dont leave much room for large holes. As for the solar? Thats pretty doable. Figure out where you want to mount your controller, fish the wires down from a hole in the roof. I actually was able to run them down next to a holding tank vent pipe. So all I needed to do was cut a hole in the wall, feed the wires down, connect to the controller, and then feed the wires down to the converter.