I'm running wire in my basement, and I realized I found an error in the previous wiring (of course). In the unfinished basement, the wiring run through the beams and then down the wall.

However, there's a beam directly atop this wall, so the wiring loops around it. As I'm required to cover the wiring with wallboard, how do I route the wiring from the ceiling into the wall if there's a beam in the way? The current wiring just stops at this beam, goes down, then into the wall. The old 8x4 beam runs along the entire top of the wall.

What's a good solution for this?

If the beam is large enough and the hole needed for wire is small enough, it may be possible to drill through the beam to run the wire through it.

However, to do this without any structural concerns at all then run the wire up alongside the beam, keeping it as tight to the beam as possible. Fur the beam out to at least the thickness of the wire. Drywall onto the furing strips. The only down-side is a slightly thicker finished beam.

I understand how to do it on a beam that hangs into a room, but for a wall, it seems I'll need to buff out the whole wall or put some sort of crown moulding to hide it.

Post a picture, your there looking at it, were not.

what kind of a wire? -- low voltage stuff like cable or ethernet, or current-carrying branch circuit wire?

code has requirements for 120/240 volt branch circuits that are essential to follow for safety and fire protection. low voltage stuff, shoot, you can cut a gap in the back of the drywall and slap it over.

quote:

Originally posted by Crissa Kentavr:
I understand how to do it on a beam that hangs into a room, but for a wall, it seems I'll need to buff out the whole wall or put some sort of crown moulding to hide it.

Can you clarify? Yes, a picture would be good.

You either have a beam, or a wall but not both. If you do have a beam on top of a wall then it's not a beam, it's just some thick framing that is not supporting anything. If that's the case, then drill a hole through the beam to get through it and run the wire inside the wall cavity.