I have an older 2 story home and the main chimney is used only for exhausting the furnace. I want to run conduit from the basement to the attic to get eletric, cable, and phone lines to various rooms on the second floor. Can I run conduit up through the chimney chase if I stay as far away from the chimney as possible? Even if I commit to never using that chimney for anything else? Can someone explain the details of why you should keep wires from the chimney chase? Specifically, does the purpose of the chimney matter? Does distance from chimney matter? Does PVC vs metal conduit matter?

kaempfe;
consideration for ambient heat may require derating. also, standard pipe fill calc's must be followed.

First off - Thanks, Sparky for the quick answer. Sorry to be a drag, however. I'm not an electrician...could you break down your answer for me? Is there a web site that I can get this info or do I need to purchase a code book or something?

What specifically is re-rating? Would that be increasing the guage for the same power? Are there temp ratings for wire or conduit?

Also - pipe fill calcs....does that refer to how many and what guage wire can fit in a certain pipe size? I was planning on oversizing the conduit so that I could bring other wires up later. Again - where can I get these calcs from?


Thanks, again! - scott

Scott,
perhaps you should ask here; http://www.forumco.com/homewiring/default.asp
the moderators pride themselves on detailed 'laymans' answers
and type much faster than i do..

Great suggestion! Thanks!
-scott