The framing has been done but i m going to be doing the wiring myself.
Drill top plate in the attic.
If one wants to add a new receptacle on the second floor in a finished room with no receptacles the easiest method appears to be doing the wiring in the attic.
Imo cutting a hole in the sheet rock on the wall and lid and drilling your holes up into the top plate would be the easiest solution.
To fix it you just fill the gap with caulk or spray foam.
If this is just a partition wall not load bearing and the wall is well supported on both sides of where you want to drill the holes i don t think there is any limit.
It would nice if the top plate was fastened to the joists above immediately on both sides of the area where all these holes will be drilled.
However this would require one to drill one hole through the top plate in order to get the wire from the desired receptacle location into the attic.
I prefer to stick the drill into the vent and drill up into the attic instead of drilling down from the attic.
Just go up in the attic pull back the insulation and find the top plates.
I want to pass some conduit up into the attic space over the room for speaker and network cable.
Just don t drop the drill.
If you will need to fish wiring through a wall drill a hole through the wood plate in the attic only.
Before drilling go into the attic and find the top plate 2x4 that is right above the vent and make sure there are no wires running directly above it that might get cut by the drill.
The photo at left shows a typical one flush drywall on one side and a big gap on the other.
Cutting drywall and drilling from below may be the only option if you have to access the attic there.
I did this recently to run ethernet cable in an exterior wall.
Normally you would cut out an access hole in the plaster below the top plate and drill a hole through the top plate.
One hole hole on the wall above the sub panel to get access to the top plate see where the wires are and get your wire fished into the top or back of the panel depending how its mounted.
I ve been reading the irc 2015 and the wording for drilling into top plates isn t clear.
I ve got a 2nd story home theater room under construction.
This will also make it easier to fish the wire.
