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I was wanting to rerun some Ethernet cable in my home. There is no Ethernet running to my living room which I want for my smart TV. For the time being, I have to run a cable from my office room to my TV and it just lays on the floor.

I also want to move some cables because I want to take an existing cable from my master bedroom, and run it to the living room. This cable goes outside to the DMARC. These walls are adjacent so it would just be a matter of pulling the cable up and dropping it down the correct wall. Doing this would allow my router to be in a more central location of the home.

However, I have one problem. I only have an attic, and it looks like this...

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How on Earth do I go about rerunning cable through that mess? Do I just try to disturb the least amount of insulation? Do I make paths along where I need to go and then put the insulation back once I'm done? This almost seems like more work than it's worth, but it's something I really want to do.

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Blown fiberglass is fairly easy to move aside and replace once the work is done. Do your best to fluff and level it, and try to avoid disrupting areas of high slope, as they'll be more difficult to restore. Where you can, simply staple the cable to the roof truss members rather than dropping it in the insulation. The less you compress it the better.

Be sure to wear a simple dust mask to avoid half a day of coughing afterward. There's a lot of atmospheric dust on top of that already irritating material.

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  • Thanks! I moved some around a bit and it's definitely very light and easy to move. I thought about getting two pieces of plywood to stand on and using a snow shovel to scoop away my path. Is that a good idea or do you have a better suggestion?
    – DrZoo
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 2:58
  • I'd step on the truss gussets (inside the vee structures), on the rat runs (the horizontal runners) and, where necessary, on the bottom chords. Plywood would pack large areas, which is bad. Minimize your steps and fluff them as you back out.
    – isherwood
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 3:12
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    When running boards to walk on, it's "shovel first, then move the board" so there's no compression of the insulation if you do it right. Walking on the framing is great until you slip or have a mis-step, and end up with a foot out the ceiling. Long sleeves and gloves taped to the sleeves and pants taped to socks (or a tyvek jumpsuit) as well as the dust mask if I'm going to be wading in fiberglass - I'm not fond of the itch.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 3:58
  • @Ecnerwal yeah that's what I was meaning when I mentioned shoveling a path. I may opt for that method, because I went back up there and I didn't quite trust myself to not slip lol. I'm not really looking forward to the itching part. If I had a Tyvek suit I'd definitely be wearing it. Thanks for the feedback!
    – DrZoo
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 14:19
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    If you are in the US, you can buy a disposable tyvek suit for about $15 at any big box home improvement store. Probably overseas as well but I'm not familiar with their offerings.
    – kinar
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 14:30

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