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Comment by mavhc | Hacker News Reader

I want at a minimum the wires in my walls/floors to be easy to edit, inside trunking in the wall/trapdoors in the floorboards. Why would you have to cut holes in your wall, edit the cables inside, and then plaster over them again to cause the same problem next time? Madness

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Why would you want to look at access panels every day for a once-in-a-decade issue? Patching a hole in a wall is really easy, all things considered.

I'd be curious to see examples of very tastefully concealed / unobtrusive / or well integrated access panels.

(Asking for myself, because I agree with both of you - I hate having to open my lathe and plaster walls, but I also don't relish the idea of blatant access panels).

Maybe 8"x8" panels with electrical receptacles and data ports integrated so they're also functional...

You could leave lathe off of the tops and bottoms of your walls and cover those sections with baseboards and crown molding. Then you pop off the baseboards / crown molding to get access behind the wall.

Some of the new Aria / Aria-like ones are pretty nice looking;

https://ariavent.com/products/flush-access-panel-luxe

Quick video showing it in 'action': https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nVo2pxSHCR0

I’ve done a smaller version of this with painted electrical junction box covers.

Basically have a cable run behind there and one of these every so often (especially at junctions).

Usually for networking or audio/video but I’ve run power cables like that too.

I do some homebuilding and I encase all my wires within walls (especially telecom) in PCV conduit (not quite Chicago style of using EMT), which allows me to pull what I want through and after the walls are finished. It also lets me upgrade my 240V conductors to handle higher current situations as I always conduit dedicated runs for dedicated circuits. I do not build slab homes, only pier and beam or basement foundation, so there is always room to go under. For plumbing, I use PEX-A for water but transition to copper at a stub pipe resulting in that being the only connection in-wall, with all branching done under the floor or under the water heater connection point (which is exposed with a water filter and access panels).

I sometimes really wish my house was pier and beam construction instead of slab; having a crawl space seems really handy when wanting to rework things. Everything is just right there!

A single story home does make some things simple, but it is still a pain with the insulation. On top of that, all the old plumbing goes through the slab making access difficult.

Rats live in crawl spaces, and they love to eat wires.

Rats seem to do fine in attics and walls as well. Pests gonna pest.

For a long time I've wanted a variant of this idea in which the exterior walls of the house are separated by a man-sized air gap from the interior walls of the house.

This make plumbing and wiring easier to repair; vermin easier to ensnare; improve safety from wildfires; and force every window to be a nice bay window with seating.

> For a long time I've wanted a variant of this idea in which the exterior walls of the house are separated by a man-sized air gap from the interior walls of the house.

Cue an increase in the number of DIYers and toddlers needing to be rescued after they have somehow managed to fall into the gap e.g. while working / playing in the attic.

Not sure how it would work from an insulation perspective, either.

Houses used to be constructed similarly. It’s actually very good, insulation wise. You have two walls you can insulate & a large air gap: pretty amazing.

But it wastes a lot of space & is expensive

High efficiency houses are actually constructed this way, although the gap is not "man-sized". It eliminates a large amount of thermal bridging.

If it's worth it to the owner, exterior walls will be framed with 2x6 instead of 2x4 to allow more space for insulation.

Mr. Chickadee did an addition like this: https://youtu.be/8fdm9R1Cbm0

Not sure if that’s a Japanese design, or where it came from.

If you’re running cables through the space in your walls, you will find a hole saw and a little plaster/paint is pretty cheap. Some kind of an access panel for the entire length of the wall? That’s a lot more expensive, and uglier to boot.

I can buy conduit cheaply. But I'm thinking make the entire wall from plastic panels, plaster was the only solution 200 years ago, surely we can do better now

Drywall is paintable. It’s repairable. It’s durable and can take a real beating. You can put new holes in it and close them back up almost like they were never there. It’s seamless. It lasts many decades. And it’s $0.40 a square foot.

What plastic can beat that?

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