Penetrating header on non load bearing wall.

[dbhost]

I am moving my home office, and will be adding a bunch of wired ethernet cables that didn't already exist as part of a house alarm / monitoring / automation system upgrade. This will be my largest installation in a residential structure to date. I have previously run cat 5e, cat 6, and telephone wire in commercial buildings with steel stud walls and raised ceilings, or much smaller installations (fewer than 8 cables in one location) in residential applications.

Anyway I am wondering how to penetrate the wall header to get the cables I need to the patch panel.

There is an existing 1" dia penetration that is carrying phone. I was considering drilling a second 1" hole next to it, and connecting the two with a hack saw. That should give me the room I need without squeezing my cable bundle...

My big question is, is that proper for code?

Like I said, non load bearing wall, interior etc... There is no electrical in this specific stud cavity (I picked this particular cavity specifically because of that. No chance of inductive interference that way!). So am I thinking right or how should I do this?

FWIW, when all is said and done, I will have 24 Category 6 cables run, and 2 RG6 coaxial cables. (1 for Comcast Internet, 1 for DirecTV).

[chopnhack]

If its only a partition wall you should be ok to do that, but I will assume that you may not have the best access up there and it may be far easier and less risk of damaging the existing phone line to just pop two more holes a bit apart instead of connecting two holes. Fire block them or insulate the holes when done.