--- title: "The conduit rule: cheap now, priceless later" description: Why running empty conduit during a renovation is the cheapest insurance you can buy, and where those pull strings pay off years later. date: 2026-05-04 updated: 2026-05-04 tags: [renovation, wiring] url: "https://joshdargie.com/blog/renovation-conduit-rule" author: Josh Dargie --- If you take one piece of technology advice into a renovation, take this one: while the walls are open, run empty conduit. Not more cable. Conduit. Plastic pipe with a pull string in it, going from a central point to the places you might ever want a wire. I call it the conduit rule, and after twenty years of watching people pay to open finished walls, I have never once heard someone say they regretted following it. ## Why conduit beats guessing at cables The obvious move during a renovation is to pull the cables you think you need. That is fine as far as it goes, and I have written before about [which decisions to make before the drywall goes up](/blog/before-drywall-decisions). But cable choices are a bet on the future, and the future has a habit of winning. Fifteen years ago the confident bet was coax to every room. Ten years ago it was Cat5e. Today it is Cat6 or Cat6A, and in another decade it may be fibre to spots nobody is thinking about now. Any specific cable you choose will eventually look dated. An empty conduit is not a bet. It is the ability to change your bet later. Whatever wire the future wants, you pull it through in twenty minutes instead of cutting drywall, patching, sanding and repainting. ## What it actually costs This is the part that convinces people. Rigid or flexible conduit is cheap, and the labour is nearly free while the framing is exposed. An electrician or low-voltage installer who is already on site can add several runs for a few hundred dollars in most cases, sometimes less if it is bundled into work they are doing anyway. Compare that with retrofitting one cable run through finished walls and ceilings, which routinely lands in the $300 to $800 range per run once you count fishing, patching and paint, and more if there is insulation or blocking in the way. One number is a rounding error on a renovation budget. The other is a recurring tax you pay every time technology moves. ## Where to run it You do not need conduit to every corner of the house. You need it to the places where wants show up later: - From the basement or utility area to the attic. This single vertical run is the spine of the house; almost everything else can branch from it. - To the spot above each exterior corner and entry, for future cameras and lighting. - To the ceiling of the main living areas, for wireless access points. Good Wi-Fi is a wiring problem first, which I covered in [wiring a house for Wi-Fi that actually works](/blog/wiring-for-wifi). - To the television wall, the office, and anywhere a desk might live. - To the garage, and out toward any future shed, shop or gate. Leave a pull string in every run, label both ends, and photograph the routes before insulation goes in. Future you will not remember where anything goes. Future you never does. ## The years-later payoff Here is when the conduit rule pays out. You buy a camera system and the installer quotes half a day instead of three because the pathways exist. You switch providers and the new service needs fibre to a different wall. A kid's bedroom becomes an office and suddenly needs a real wired connection. An electric vehicle shows up and the panel conversation is easier because there is a pathway to the driveway side of the house. None of these are exotic. They are the ordinary life of a house over fifteen years, and each one either costs a pull string or costs a drywall contractor. I design and plan this kind of thing; I do not crawl through attics anymore. For the hands-on side in Southern Ontario, a low-voltage outfit like RelayPoint Technologies (https://relaypoint.ca) can rough in conduit and structured wiring while your contractor has the walls open, and it is worth coordinating them early rather than after the insulation is booked. ## Say it to your contractor in one sentence Contractors hear a lot of vague technology wishes. This one is concrete: "While the walls are open, I want empty conduit with pull strings from the mechanical room to the attic, the main ceilings, each exterior corner, and the office and TV walls." That sentence costs you nothing to say and very little to execute. It is the highest ratio of future value to present cost I know of in residential work. If you are heading into a renovation and want a wiring and conduit plan matched to your actual house rather than a generic checklist, I do that as a short fixed-fee engagement. Start at [my planning page](/hire#planning) and tell me what you are building.