Maybe this is some help to you. I spent a lot of time on this site before we built our house. The following came from this site.
Low Voltage Home Pre-Wire Guide
Tom
Routing Around Electrical:
The main thing to watch in routing low-voltage signal cable is avoiding high-voltage AC wiring. It is OK to cross low voltage signal and speaker wires at 90 degrees to electrical wiring (cross perpendicularly), but avoid running parallel and close to electrical wiring. This will cause noise in speakers (at low volumes) and could cause data errors in data lines. Everyone told us to do the low-voltage wiring
after the electrician has finished his pre-wire! I heard several "horror stories" about running speaker wires then later finding the electrician liked the holes that had already been drilled, and used the speaker wire holes for his electrical wire. One installer even drilled holes through many joists to get a path, went back to where he started the holes, and found the electrician filling his new holes with electrical runs. If you do any wiring on outside walls, make sure you do it before insulation!
Unfortunately, there is often very little time between the completion of the electrical pre-wiring and the start of insulation and drywall. We were unable to start our wiring after the electrician due to scheduling; in fact, we started before the electricians. Fortunately, the electricians were very understanding about our wiring (a rare attitude, according to my contacts), and were very conscientious about crossing at right angles and not running parallel to our wires. Even so, we had to re-run some cable paths when the electricians ran too close, especially on long runs. The rule of thumb in this case is, if there is an easy path and a hard path, take the hard path because the electrician
will take the easy path.
I have heard several differing views on the minimum separation between parallel runs of AC and low-voltage cabling -- anywhere between 6 inches and 4 feet, depending on who you talk to. In the CEBus Installer's Guide under twisted pair installation, they say keeping 6 inches between the TPBus and AC wiring is good. However, I've heard that AC wires produce a field 18" out from the wire. Others say to keep 3 to 4 feet away. Therefore, I tried to keep at least the 3-4 feet where I could, but dropped down to 16" for shorter runs. You will frequently want to run wires to a box near a switch or floor outlet, so running along the opposite stud (16" centers) in a bay to get to the outlet is common. And, the "no parallel runs" rule can be violated for short distance if absolutely necessary, such as to get over a door frame or tight locations that leave no alternatives. SoundTrack says that Monster audio cable can run up to 10 feet parallel to AC (1 foot from the coax), coax can run 25 feet (or much more for Monster coax), and other low voltage wire can run about 2 feet without much chance of problems. You should never run the cable in the same holes as AC for parallel runs -- keep at least some separation, and keep parallel runs very short. Low voltage wiring should also never go into the same wall box as AC.
