i have 2 SDS battery drills at home, one is works unit and the other is my own. one is 24v and the other is 18v.

my 24v SDS battery drill with kango action is an absolute beast at times

Yeah SDS is just a way of attaching the bit, but as a general rule SDS drills are percussion drills and you can get chisel bits for them in standard trunking sizes. Also you can get a plug back box cutter

them back box cutters are genius!! makes life a lot easier at times.

but i haven't found many drills that do hammer action only, mine is the only battery drill i have seen with it

How do you hold the thing still enough to cut a plub back box ? I woul dhave thought it would shake around a little ?

Or have I totally misunderstood how they work?

there are two bits to the ones i have used, a big hole saw looking drill bit thingy thats about 75mm ish then you remove that and use a square chisel thing with the drill set to hammer only and chisels the corners out

So you'd say I should hire one of these things for channeling walls for pipes and cables ?

I assume cheap percussion drills aren't all that great and hence, I'd be better off hiring a good one ?

Try having a look at the wicks profesional range, they are usually fairly good. If you are going to be spending a few days doing things it may be worth buying one, using it then e-baying it when you are done.

When i re wired my house a couple of years back i did it all by hand. With a big hammer and a chisel, depends on what your walls are made of, our were breeze block so they are soft as poo. and therefore very easy to put a chase into.

Re speaker wire for surround sound system, i have a Yamaha home cinema system and used to use the basic bell wire stuff with it. However when we moved house i splashed out on some better stuff made by Gale, don't get me wrong it was only about

Regarding the mains cable, it depends which stuff you are talking about. Twin and earth with a solid core:

Probably wouldn't be very good. A better bet would be three core flex, disregarding the third core. Three core flex is stranded and just like thick speaker cable anyway:

I haven't a clue how the mains stuff compares in price to proper speaker cable though.

As long as the two cores you use are stranded you should be ok.

I would definately invest in some of the more budget speaker cable just because if you do want to use a better amp it will cost you more than £45 to take the wall out again and put new stuff in.

Oh and if you do go the way of mains flex, get the thickest flex you can, i used to run 30 amp cable for high power rigs, 15 amp cable most of the time and 13amp for when we were just hooking up a small room and had a load spare.

Try this lot for speaker wire/cable, fast delivery etc:-

http://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/dynamic/home.html

We're currently building a house which is set up for home cinema, including a 2" section of drain pipe in the wall as a duct for the wall mounted LCD telly, and our spark wired it with this stuff: QED QX 16/2 Cable

Good ****. Very high quality.

Edited: They also do a four core for bi-wiring.

I hope his TV wont' be using a Scart input :eek: he'll struggle to fit a Scart connector through a 2" pipe

The more I think of it, the more I'm tempted to do the same for my speaker wires - but with rectangular trunking.

Dont buy a drill to chase the walls out, hire a proper wall chasing machine, makes it a piece of p*ss, and you get very nice, neat, perfect straight cuts in the wall (less damage to decoration) which you can then put either conduit or trunking into and plaster over (only downside is the amount of dust created).

Or if you have cavity walls without any insulation in them you can just drill two holes, one at where you want the speakers and the other directly underneath either at skirting board level or if you have wooden floors, under the floor level, drop some chain down the wall from the top hole and fish it out through the bottom hole (with string attached to pull the cable back up through).

Oh and if you use the trunking/conduit method, make sure you thread some string through it before you put it in the wall, makes life much easier!

I hope his TV wont' be using a Scart input :eek: he'll struggle to fit a Scart connector through a 2" pipe

With the money he has spent on speaker cable I'd guess he won't accept anything less the component video and he'll probably using HDMI... It's quite impressive though the ammount of one wall that has been chased out for the TV duct, back boxes, etc.

The more I think of it, the more I'm tempted to do the same for my speaker wires - but with rectangular trunking.

Good plan. I'd duct it then you can put almost anything in it for the time being and you can upgrade at a later date.

EDIT:

Ignore that I just googled for wall chasing tool... nice definately go hire one of them

Cheapish one from screwfix

http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro.jsp?id=81200&ts=90008

8500 RPM :eek: Its an angle grinder with wheels

Very interested in getting my hands on one of those - but a job for an empty house without furniture !

no it's a dual wheel angle grinder on wheels

You can hire one with a vacuum cleaner pipe attachement to suck most of the dust away.