A day after the installation of the flat Aurum speaker wire in the Queen's Room, the vertical length of wire from the left speaker to the floor is peeling from the wall on left and right sides. It can't actually fall because it is held tight at the top with a Sewell Ghost Wire Terminal Block. But it doesn't look good this way, and it is possible eventually the wire might be damaged.. The left side is half way peeled from the wall over a considerable length, and it has pulled more than 1/4 inch from the wall at the edge. (By Wednesday, some length of the wire had completely pulled itself off the wall, and any bit of it could easily be pulled off by hand.)
I knew this sort of thing to be a potential problem with flat adhesive wire (Aurum Flat Cable or Sewell Ghost Wire). It is a problem commonly reported in reviews. It's funny that the horizontal stretch of wire is adhering perfectly, only the vertical part has a problem. (I now vaguely remember this particular problem being reported by some reviewer who decided to use regular wire for vertical runs.) I think it may be because the vertical length of wire got stretched a little bit from gravity while it was being hung from the top. After I noticed the problem, I realized one possible solution (if it works) would be to remove all the existing wire and start all over, this time rolling the wire up from the bottom. That would be a whole days worth of frustrating work all over again. I could also try re-attaching the existing wire just from the bottom corner up, but it's possible that the harm has already been done to the wire, and the adhesive has already been weakened from being used and exposed to air. At minimum I would then have to drill a new slightly lower hole for the terminal block. In neither case would success be assured after a lot of rework.
The reason why I hung the wire from the top down is that the first thing I was able to do was attach the first terminal block…then it seemed like hanging the wire from the top down would be the perfect way to ensure it was straight and level (I used a level as I was going). I didn't even think about the possibility of stretching the wire so it would not ultimately stick flat. Rolling the wire up from the bottom…it would be hard to know where on the wire to start up given a top end which was already terminated. (Terminating the ends of the wire requires a frustrating hour or so of work to peel back the plastic backing. The problem is you can't easily get started peeling it. You have to tease and scrape, having to start all over several times each time you damage the end too much.)
It could be helpful to use painters tape to designate the straight and level path for the wire.
Here's are some instructions for installing the essentially identical Sewell Ghost Wire, which don't mention anything about vertical runs of wire, or being careful not to stretch the wire.
Another approach would would not require removing and reattaching the wire (but could be done after doing that also) would be adding some additional adhesive material behind the wire. I was thinking of using the high end DAP acrylic latex caulk, the one guaranteed to be "permanently flexible." Somewhow that seems right. But plain old painters caulk might work also, as might rubber cement, white glue, and many other similar things. Perhaps even just wall texturing on top would hold the cable down, but I think best that it grip properly from the back.
I'm having trouble finding the reviews where people talk about this and solutions they figured out.
On Wednesday I bought a pack of #2 pencils to mark on one side of the existing wire as a guide for re-hanging it level. I bought two brands of white eraser to erase the pencil mark. I bought DAP Dynaflex 230 permanently flexible caulk. I've decided the way to rerun the wire from the bottom is to put up a few feet at a time and temporarily tape it in place with painter's tape. Then once the terminable block is mounted at a new location--slightly lower--I will remove the painter's tape, peel back a little wire at a t time and rub the caulk behind it for better adhesion. I may also apply some caulk behind the horizontal run, but it doesn't need to be re-run to remove excessive tightness.
Seeing what happens to this adhesive wire, I am reminded of what happened to a tall poster I once tried to to tape to the wall. It was falling over by the next day. I believe now this reveals something not normally understood. The walls of our houses (and particularly mine) are not perfectly straight, but slightly bowed, most likely toward the middle of the room at the top, and then back toward the middle and lower part. In other words, drooping. This means that a wire held tight at the top and bottom will hang most away from the wall at or just above the middle.
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