LTC Rewind -Expert Tips for Installing and Mounting Plywood in Telecom Rooms

We journey back a few episodes to discuss installing plywood. Ever wonder why so many telecom rooms suffer from equipment damage or personal injury? Discover the critical steps you must take to verify the maximum load capacity of your walls and the essential techniques for correct plywood sizing and cutting. We reveal how these overlooked tasks can make your telecom setup safer and more stable, protecting both your equipment and your team. Join our after-hours live multi-stream sessions for an interactive Q&A experience and get your most pressing questions answered in real-time.

Not all plywood is created equal, and choosing the right grade can make a world of difference in your telecom room. We'll break down the characteristics of D, C, B, and A-grade plywood, explaining why A-grade and AC-grade are tops for visible surfaces. Learn why fire-rated plywood or paint is necessary to meet safety regulations, and why marine-grade plywood, despite its durability, could pose chemical risks and unnecessary expenses. Equip yourself with the knowledge to select the best materials for your telecom projects, ensuring both compliance and longevity.

Mounting plywood isn't just about screwing it to the wall; it's about ensuring the structural integrity and aesthetic quality of your installation. From the alignment of butt joints to the choice between galvanized screws and toggle bolts with fender washers, we cover it all. Discover tips for using liquid nails to prevent warping, hiding cables for a clean look, and selecting high-quality plywood to avoid complications. By the end of this episode, you'll be fully equipped to execute a flawless plywood installation in your telecom room.

Chapters

• 0:00 Plywood Installation Tips in Telecom Rooms
• 8:00 Grade a/C Plywood for Telecom Rooms
• 16:27 Wall Mounting Techniques for Telecom Rooms
• 21:39 Plywood Mounting Techniques for Telecom

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

One of the most critical components that you can install as a telecommunications technician. During a project, I bet you probably don't even give it a second thought. But if you don't do it correctly, you can have equipment falling off the wall, you can have cables falling off the wall, somebody could get injured and you could even cause it to be more dangerous during a fire. So today's show we're going to give you 10 tips on purchasing and installing plywood for your telecom rooms. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions that are submitted to us by installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, business owners, it installers. We connect at the human level so we can connect the world. If you're watching this on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're watching this show on or listen to the show on podcast Apple, google Play, amazon, all those podcast platforms that we're available on would you mind leaving us a five star rating? If you can't leave us a five star rating, shoot me an email. Let me know what I'm doing, that I can do better to get that five-star rating. Those couple of steps help us beat the algorithm so we can get listed in the content when people look for this kind of stuff and we can help train more people. We can help this learning platform reach more people and benefit more people. Did you also know that on Thursday nights we do an after hours live multi-stream? Yeah, it's published on both LinkedIn Live and YouTube every Thursday night, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time, and the format that we've been doing for the last few weeks is Ask Chuck Bowser RCDD, where you submit your questions in advance and then I answer them. We also answer questions live on the stream as well, but I always give preference to the questions that are submitted ahead of time because I get to make cool graphics for them and I love making graphics and it helps convey the concept a little bit better as well. But if, for some reason, you can't attend the after hours on Thursday nights at 6 pm Eastern Standard Time, they are recorded and they're placed on YouTube so you can watch them at your pm Eastern Standard Time. They are recorded and they're placed on YouTube so you can watch them at your leisure. Or if you come across someone whom you think you know will be a benefit to that message, then just send them to the webpage wwwletstalkcablingcom. You have access to all the After Hours series, all the articles and all of the podcasts. There's also ways where you can submit questions. There's also ways you can support the channel as well, either via Patreon, paypal, amazon, purchasing tools and stuff off Amazon, and also corporate membership as well, because it does cost money to run this platform.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Now, as the intro said, many times we put up plywood without even giving as much of a second thought. But if it's done wrong, if it's installed incorrectly, at minimum you could have your boss yelling at you because you didn't do it right. You can have the authority having jurisdiction Some people call them the electrical inspector getting mad at you, inspector getting mad at you. Or, worst case scenario, you might have some equipment falling off the wall, in which case the customers might be suing you to get the damaged equipment fixed. Or if that equipment fell on somebody while they were in the telecom room and they got injured, you might have to be dealing with that as well.

Speaker 1: 3:42

So we're going to go through 10 ways, or 10 things you need to consider and do when you put a plywood in that telecom room or the equipment room. The first one is verify the maximum load of the wall. Now, that's going to be easy on a new construction site, because all you got to do is go to the general contractor, the GC, the superintendent, and ask them what is the load rating of the wall, and they should be able to tell you that. If they don't, they should be able to find that information pretty quickly, maybe even connect to the architect, and the architect will be able to tell you If it's in an existing office. Well, you're going to have to do some research, right? You're going to have to find out what the maximum load capacity of that wall is, and you're just going to have to get on the old Google machine and look it up and research it. Now, make sure that you want to know how much weight is going to be put on that wall. You want to calculate the plywood, the cable, the equipment, because, again, if you overload it, that's the recipe for a huge catastrophe and because of liability, if you're doing that method, huge catastrophe. And because of liability, if you're doing that method, make sure that you document the process that you went through to be able to tell whether that plywood or that wall had the low capacity to hold all the equipment on there that was supposed to. You might have to calculate the weight of the phone system, the voicemail system, the access control system, the AV system, the cable, the blocks, a rack with plywood and all that fun stuff.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Number two you make sure that you size the plywood correctly. Now, plywood generally is sold in four by eight feet. Right, it's 1.2 meters by 2.4 meters for my cable pulling brothers over there in Europe. Now you can go to your local big box store and that's the size that they come in. But if you need a customized size, most of the big box stores will cut it for you and that's going to help you, because if you don't have a full size truck, then you can get them cut to fit whatever size vehicle it is you're driving. But if you do them in full size, you're going to be able to cover more wallboard faster. But again, getting your cuts can help you get it to a job site, because not everybody has a pickup truck with a full-size bed. And now a message from our sponsor.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Big or small, local or nationwide, fortress Telecom is your go-to partner for all your connectivity needs. With our expertise in low-voltage cabling, bi-directional Tier 2 fiber certification, copper certification up to Cat 8, and Wi-Fi site surveys using Ekahau Sidekick, there's no project too challenging for us. Count on Fortress Telecom to deliver top-notch solutions tailored to your business, wherever you are across the nation. Visit FortressTelecomcom or call us today to start your seamless connectivity journey. Fortress Telecom, we are secure IT. Let's get back to the show.

Speaker 1: 6:38

So plywood also comes in varied thicknesses. You'll see that when you get to the big box store They've got eight or nine different thicknesses that you can buy them for. The best one for the telecom or the equipment room is going to be a three quarter inch thick piece of plywood, that's 19 millimeters. Anything thinner than that just will not have enough meat to it for you to attach stuff to and will not be able to support all the weight of the cable and the equipment that you're going to be putting on that. Anything thicker than three quarters of an inch is going to be very cost prohibitive. Now, yes, you can use something thicker than a three quarter inch, but just keep in mind that's going to cost you extra material on the job site. Playwood also comes in different grades A through D, grade right. Each one of those grades describes how many defects are actually allowed to be on that piece of plywood. Let's start off with talking about some of these grades, and I'm going to start off with the D grade, the one that's the worst one. So the D grade, by the way, to make things even more complicated. Worst one, so the D grade. By the way. To make things even more complicated. A plywood can actually have two grades. You can have an A side and a C side, or an A side and a D side. We'll get more into that a little bit later. So let's talk about those different grades that you can get into Again, starting from the lowest, the D grade.

Speaker 1: 8:00

So a D grade plywood is going to have knots and it's going to have knot holes and they're going to be pretty big because they're allowed to be up to two and a half inches across the grain right and they're also allowed to have splits in the plywood. Now again, splits is not a good thing when you're trying to put screws or bolts into it to mount equipment off of. So it's allowed to have them as long as they're somewhat minor, again, not for something you won't be hanging equipment off of. That really makes the D-grade unsuitable for really interior use for inside of like a telecom room or equipment room. It's just there's too many defects to it and it's going to cause you problems down the road. You don't want to deal with them, problems after you've had the customer sign off on that project.

Speaker 1: 8:45

So the C-grade the C-grade actually allows knots and knot holes. It allows knots up to one and one half inches and knot holes up to one inch across the grain. The C-side also can have some discoloration to it and they also might have some synthetic wood in there that they use to make repairs, or might have some wood in there that they use for repairs as well with glue. So it's not going to be the prettiest thing, right? So those defects are going to make it okay to hang stuff off of. But you really want to have a better grade, facing outward, so that way where the customer sees it. So C is a good choice, but I would try to get something with a higher grade on the other side of that plywood.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Now, grade B. Grade B is going to be a solid surface and even though it may have some repairs done on it due to them, like the cutting sled or maybe the router at the factory, it's been fixed and they glue it and they sand it down. That way you have some some stuff. It may also even have some tight knots going across that grain. Again, knots are not fun to try to put screws into. Now, as long as they don't exceed one inch and they have some minor splits, you can still use that B piece of plywood Grade A. Grade A is the best. It's going to have a smooth finish, which means you don't have to sand anything when you're done, which is going to be perfect for painting that surface, because you don't have to sand it and then paint it. You don't have to prep it, it's already done. It's also, like I said, not going to require any sanding. That's one less thing you do on a job site. So an A-grade plywood will have no more than 18 repaired, neatly repaired blemishes on it. So you will not see any knots or knot holes. There might be some there, but they're repaired and that way it's a nice, smooth piece of plywood.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Now, what should you use for your telecom room? Like I said, the best choice is going to be a combination. So you might want to get a A slash C grade, matter of fact, I think that's what they actually call for three quarter inch AC grade plywood. And when you mount that, you want to make sure that the C side of the plywood, the one with the knots and the knot holes, is facing towards the wall. The A side, the side that's. You know that's been sanded and it's perfect. You want that facing outward. That's what you want to hang your equipment off of your cabling off of. Also, make sure that you choose a piece of plywood that has been, that has no voids in it whatsoever. So what that means is, when you're selecting the plywood, also look at the edges of the plywood, because they're just laminates, they're just pieces of wood glued together, right? You want to make sure to look that they're not starting to delaminate, because that reduces the amount of weight that it can actually handle. So you look around all four sides that thin side, that three-quarter inch side go all the way around that plywood.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Another thing that you want to avoid is you want to make sure that you stay away from marine-grade plywood. Now, I say that because I actually had a technician once try to put a marine grade plywood. Number one it's extremely expensive plywood. Number two it might have some chemicals inside it that make it resistive to water, which could cause you problems inside of a customer's building if there's people that might have allergy issues, or you might have an authority having jurisdiction not allow you to use marine-grade plywood in that kind of environment. So it's just best to stay away from that. Number four make sure that you might have to buy either fire-rated plywood, fire-rated paint or fire-rated plywood with fire-rated paint. It just kind of depends on your authority having jurisdiction. They'll tell you that ahead of time, especially if you ask them.

Speaker 1: 12:19

Now, if you buy a fire retardant plywood, there are some things that are pretty critical to the installation. Number one when you mount that to the wall, make sure that that stamp that says it's a fire retardant plywood is facing outward. Okay, make sure it's facing outward. That way when the inspector comes out to look at your job and they know that in their jurisdiction they require fire retardant plywood, they see the stamp and they know that you did indeed use the correct plywood. So also make sure that you mount any equipment over that stamp. Now, some jurisdictions will not only require you to use a fire retardant plywood, they're also going to require you to fire retardant paint on that fire retardant plywood. Right, it seems kind of redundant, but some jurisdictions will actually do that.

Speaker 1: 13:08

Fire retardant paint usually comes one of two different types. You can either just purchase the fire retardant paint, which is extremely expensive paint Last time I priced it was over a hundred dollars a gallon or you can buy the chemical compound to put in any kind of regular paint and then it makes that paint fire retardant paint. Now, when you paint that plywood with that fire retardant paint that you just made or you just bought, again, make sure that you don't paint over the stamp. The inspector is going to want to see the stamp when they do their final inspection. If they can't see the stamp, they are going to make you pull that plywood off the wall, put on a new one. Who has enough time in their day to do the same task twice? Nobody does, nobody does. The inspector is going to want to see that stamp. So do everything you can to ensure that they're going to be able to see the stamp when you get done.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Number five the mounting height of the plywood. Now, let's say, for example, that you have a four by eight piece of plywood that I talked about earlier and it's going to be used as a backboard to mount cable and ladder rack and equipment off of. You want to make sure, when you mount that plywood, that you mount the bottom of the plywood to eight inches above the finished floor. Eight inches above the finished floor at minimum. What that's going to do for my European buddies, that's 200 millimeters what that's going to do is, if you're using a four by eight piece of plywood. That means that the top of the plywood will be about eight and a half feet. Now let's be honest, in some rooms, some telecom rooms, the ceilings might not be that tall as part. So in that scenario you want to make sure that you mount the plywood all the way up against the edge of the ceiling grid and then that way the bottom edge of the plywood is somewhere between four and six inches. When you're mounting the plywood to the wall, you want to make sure that the longest edge, the eight foot edge, is vertical, okay, not horizontal. You want to do it vertically.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Number six you may have to cut out holes to accommodate for electrical outlets. Now this can be done one of two ways. One of the ways is you actually measure where that hole is going to be on your wall. Double check your measurements before you cut the plywood. Cut that hole in the plywood. You can do like with a drill and a jigsaw, mount that plywood to the wall and then you're going to need longer screws for the electrical receptacle to bring that receptacle out of the box. So it's flush with the plywood. That way when you put the faceplate on, it's flush. That's probably the best and the neatest way to do this. I've also seen technicians just cut a hole in the plywood that's larger than the faceplate and then that way, when they put it up against the wall, you can easily plug things in and out. And then that way, when they put up against the wall, you can easily plug things in and out, and if an electrician needs to get to that receptacle to work on it, the hole's big enough where you can get the faceplate off and get inside of it. So you, if you're not an electrician, you may want to opt for the second method, or you might be working in an area of the country where the union makes it necessary that you have to use an electrician to do that. Again, I wouldn't do electrical work unless you are a journeyman electrician. If you haven't been trained on how to do that work safely, stay away from doing that work because you could cause some pretty bad things to happen.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Number seven some of the closets that you're going to be mounting plywood in. They may require you to put plywood on one, maybe two, maybe three or maybe even all of the walls of the telecom or equipment room. If you're installing the plywood on more than one wall. The first plywood that you're going to hang, you want to butt it into the corner of the wall of the room because that wall is supposed to be plumb. That way, if you put that plywood into that corner, your plywood should also be plumb. And then when you mount your next piece of plywood next to that, you want to butt it up against that piece of plywood to make sure that there is no separation between those two pieces of plywood. Now, when you mount the other plywood on the adjacent wall, same thing. You butt it all the way up into the corner, again ensuring that there are no gaps. Right, because when you have gaps then you have problems, because it always seems that's right. Where you got to put a screw in to hang a piece of equipment, you don't want any gaps whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 17:23

Number eight when you're mounting the plywood to the wall, you have a couple options for how to mount that plywood to the wall. The simplest method is going to be to use galvanized screws. Now, if you're using galvanized screws and you have to use galvanized because they don't rust Now, when you're using galvanized screws, you want to make sure that these screws are a minimum of one half inch longer than the width of both the plywood and the gypsum board or the drywall. So, like I said earlier, the plywood was three quarter inches. Let's say the drywall is one half inch. So if you take three quarter inch plus one half inch, that means the thickness of the wall is one and a quarter inches. Now, since I said that I had to have a half inch, going beyond that, I had a half inch, that one and a quarter inches, and that means I need to have at least a one and three quarter inch long screw that's going to ensure that the screw is long enough to go through both the plywood and the gypsum board and securely mounting into the stud. That's critical.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Now, I've never been a big fan of screws and plywood. Problem with that is if you don't buy a piece of plywood that has been kiln dried to a maximum moisture content of 15, as that plywood dries out it will start to warp and if you've got it mounted to the wall with screws it could warp so much that it could pull the screw through the plywood. And then you'll come there one day and see the plywood kind of pulled out a little bit and the screw is still in the stud in the wall. So I've never been a big fan of using screws. A tip that I used to do when I had to use screws for a wall I used to put liquid nails on the back side of the plywood and then screw that to the wall. After a couple, three, four days that liquid nails would cure and that piece of plywood was permanently attached to the wall. The wall would literally fall off the studs before the plywood would come off the gypsum board. It was not going anywhere.

Speaker 1: 19:21

It's like an extra level of safety to ensure that whatever equipment's getting hung on that wall won't fall off. And again, you don't want that kind of stuff happening. The thing is you can't guarantee that your screws will hit studs. Guarantee that your thing is. You can't guarantee that your screws will hit studs. So a more secure way of mounting a piece of plywood to a drywall is toggle bolts with fender washers.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Toggle bolts with fender washers. Now make sure that the toggle bolt that's at least a minimum of one half inch thick bolt and that it's long enough to go through that three quarter inch plywood, that whatever thickness of the gypsum board is, and enough past that so that the butterfly bolt has enough room to open up so that way when you pull it back it bites onto the piece of gypsum board. Now one problem you're going to run into is if you have a wall that's insulated, that butterfly bolts sometimes will not want to open up. So keep that in mind if you're working on insulated walls. Now here's a tip for when you're doing this, when you're doing toggle bolts. So once you get it in you know that that bolt is opened up. You just kind of pull back on the screw until it stops, take your power drill and then put it on the screw head and then screw it down while you're keeping a little bit of pressure, and that'll keep that butterfly bolt against the wall and that helps snug it up a lot faster and a lot easier.

Speaker 2: 20:42

Hey everyone, we're taking a quick break to talk about an essential resource for anyone interested in the vast world of physical security. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, you'll want to tune into Security Today. Hosted by Bayer, this podcast dives deep into everything security-related, from insightful articles and thought-provoking philosophies to the latest trending topics in the industry. Every episode of Security Today is packed with information that's crucial for staying informed and ahead in the field. Join Bear as he explores complex topics with ease, making even the most intricate security concepts accessible to everyone. Follow the journey on Instagram and Twitter, at UncleBear underscore and at Security Today Podcast. Now let's dive back into our episode.

Speaker 1: 21:39

Now, when you're mounting plywood, whether using the toggle bolt or the screw method, it's going to go a lot better if you have someone to help you. Now, if you're using a toggle bolt method, what you're going to be doing is you can put the plywood up the wall, on the wall. You're going to hold it there. Sorry, you're going to drill holes in the plywood, first where you want to have the toggle bolts, then hold that plywood to the wall and then, with a pencil or pen, you're going to put it through the hole and you're going to put marks on the wall. Take that plywood down, drill through the drywall. Now, use a wood bit or a small hole saw right because you don't want to blow out the plywood. I mean, blow out the gypsum board and then put the bolts through the plywood, put the butterfly bolts on. Then the both of you lift that plywood up and then, while one steadies the plywood, the other one's going to squeeze the butterfly bolts and put them through the holes that you previously made and then, once you get it in, then you start screwing it down. Right now, when you put it through the, the toggle bowl, you'll make sure to put the toggle bolts through the boards, you want to make sure that they are at least 24 inches. On the short end, you're going to have three bolts. On the long end, you're going to have four bolts. You also want to make sure that the bolts are a minimum of two inches away from the edge of that plywood right, you don't want it too close to the edge. And if you're using the fender washers, like I told you, that's going to give you more surface area for the fender washer to bite onto and gives you more gripping power. So that's more weight that it can actually hold.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Now, a lot of technicians, when they put in toggle bolts, they like to countersink them. And when you countersink them you've got to be really careful because that could weaken the structural strength of the plywood. So you've got to be really careful with doing the countersinking. I've never been a big fan of countersinking. When you're putting in the toggle bolts, also, make sure that you know where the studs are. Use a stud finder or you can sound the wall to find that stud right, because if you try to put a toggle bolt through a wall where a stud is, there's not enough room for the butterfly bolt to open up. So you don't want to be right on top of one. You don't even want to be next to it. You want to be off a good couple inches off of that stud.

Speaker 1: 23:54

Number 10, make sure that the plywood is level. Now don't use a torpedo level right. Use a level that's a minimum of 12 inches or, better yet, a 24 inch level. The longer the level, the more accurate it will be. You can't necessarily go by if you're putting it into the corner. Like I mentioned earlier, you can't necessarily assume that that wall was actually plumb level. I've been in buildings where they weren't, and because it's going to really be apparent if the plywood is not level as you're going down the wall with sheets of plywood. So make sure that it is level. It's better to do this earlier and check everything than later on and then have to refix it, especially if you use toggle bolts.

Speaker 1: 24:26

Number 11. So, like I said, some technicians like to countersink. That's not a good idea because again, it weakens the structural strength of the plywood. Number 12, if you're mounting 110 blocks or another connecting block that's similar to a 110 block. What I used to do is I used to take, after I mounted the plywood to the wall, I would take a circular saw and cut a four inch by four inch hole in the wall, I would drop all my voice cables down behind the plywood. Come out that four by four inch hole, put my 110 block over that, route the cables through and then terminate. That way you didn't even see the cables coming down. That saved dressing time in a project.

Speaker 1: 25:03

Now, a lot of technicians love to dress cables because it looks pretty, and I was one of those. But sometimes if I was running behind hours on a project, that was one of the things I used to do and it hid the cable. And a lot of customers don't like looking at cabling it. Just all they would see is the termination block on the wall. And again, it saved me time on the job site because I didn't have to dress all those cables. But if you do that, make sure that you leave a pull string for the next person who's coming out to do drops down that wall. Also, make sure you understand if that's a fire rated wall or not. If it's a fire rated wall, don't go cutting a four by four inch hole into it, because you're going to derate that wall or make it no longer a fire rated wall. So make sure you understand. A lot of times you can go up into the ceiling and they'll have it painted on the wall what rating that particular wall might be Tip number 13.

Speaker 1: 25:52

And this kind of goes back to step number three where I talked about the different grades of the plywood. So when you actually at the big box store and you're trying to buy that piece of plywood and you're looking at that big stack of plywood, don't buy the piece right off the top Usually the piece on the top is usually the worst one because you really want to make sure that you go through the pile with a reasonable amount of time to find the best piece of plywood. Because if you do that up front you're going to save yourself a ton of time on the backside. Because if you just grab that top one, you get it back to the job site and you realize it's warped or there's defects that you got to fix. That's going to cause you a bunch of time on the backside.

Speaker 1: 26:31

It is perfectly acceptable to sort through a pile to buy the best piece of wood. All of the stores. Let you do that. So spend just a little bit of time up front to get the best piece of plywood, because, remember, it's a statement of your work. The customer is going to see that plywood. If it's a plywood that's warped or it's messed up, they're going to assume that you didn't really care about the job. So make sure that you didn't really care about the job, so make sure that you do the best thing you do. So we went through 10 tips today on how to select and install a piece of plywood. I also even threw in three extras, so you get three freebies. I'm sure I probably missed a couple. If you can think of one that I didn't cover today, put that in the comment section down below, so that way we can share it amongst everybody. That way we can all become better installers and better technicians. So until next time, be safe.

Speaker 3: 27:20

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.