How to get around cross beams

Wide angle of channel made to get around cross beam. 

Close up of channel that was made to get around cross beam with CAT 5 cabling.

Installed jack plate over channel temporarily until customer can have channel plastered over.

Close up of jack cover hiding wire channel 

Sometimes when you are pulling cables you come across cross beams. Sometimes this is easy to get around, especially when the walls are up, or if you were aware of their presence and you are able to place the jack in an alternate location. 

Sometimes you just cut out your hole for your low voltage mount, try to snake the wire up or down the wall and find out that your snake is not making it all the way past the drop ceiling. 

In those cases you can measure how far your snake is making it up and down the wall and make a small channel. Snake the wire from one side of the channel up (or down) then bring it around the beam and snake the cable the rest of the way. Many times you can get away with a blank electrical plate as a cover. I did not have any blank electrical plates so I used a single hole plate with some white tape to cover the hole (a blank would have required me to make the hole bigger to accommodate the depth of the blank which I do not think was worth it, when the customer can either get a blank plate themselves for about $1, or have someone come and plaster up the hole when the complete the painting.