Burying wires in plaster in 'safe zone'

I have some cables in the hall running to upstairs in surface mounted trunking. I want to hide them. Unfortunately they are just outside the safe zone (by about 30mm or so). I am going to look into what would be involved in moving them horizontally but I fear they might be in their current position because of a joist in the ceiling above. As an alternative, would it be acceptable to have them running vertically within the safe zone until they meet the horizontal safe zone at the top of the wall? It would end up being more of a 'wiggle' from the vertical path to the existing hole in the ceiling but all contained within the safe zones.

Bob

Reply to
Bob
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Stick an accessory box underneath with a blanking plate on, creating a new safe zone?

Reply to
Tim Watts

Wot's a 'safe zone' ?

Tim W

Reply to
Tim W

From the IEE Regs:

A vertical or horizontal band stretching left/right or up/down from a visible accessory (eg light switch or socket)

or A 150mm wide vertical band adjacent to an internal corner on a wall or A 150mm wide horizontal band on a wall adjacent to the ceiling.

In these zones you may run mechanically unprotected mains cables (though you now need RCD protection on all such wiring under the 17th Ed)

If those conditions cannot be met, you need "mechanical protection" which means: heavy guage steel conduit; SWA cable, MICC cable, metal trunking or shielded cable to some particular BS (eg EarthShield or XL-Shield)

Metal plaster capping does not count, neither does using FP200 (fire alarm) cable or SX/SY braided cables, nor does using old thin walled conduit.

That's why the OP was asking, and why I suggested creating a new safe zone (blanking plate is a bit of a cheat but is generally accepted as valid).

The long and short is:

don't drill holes above/below/left or right (for the entire straight wall length) of a visible accessory, and watch out for internal corners.

HTH

Tim

Reply to
Tim Watts

A permitted cable route

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Cheers

Reply to
ARWadsworth

As long as the cables are in either the horizonatal or vertical zones then you are fine.

Cheers

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Actually there is already a wall thermostat there which, it could be argued, provides a safe zone for the wires in question. The thing is, using this also feels like a bit of a cheat to me as it is unrelated to the wires and in theory there is no guarantee that it will stay there for the lifetime of the wires (though I have no plans to move it).

It seems everything will be a lot more clear cut if I can get the wires moved over by a couple of inches or so.

Having said that, another thought crossed my mind. One of the wires supplies a radial circuit to the two outside cupboards in the offshot (actually the old outside toilet and coal shed). That circuit provides lighting in the cupboards and an outside socket. At the moment, we can only turn this circuit off by turning off the circuit breaker in consumer unit. It would actually be quite handy to have a switch in the house to do this. Would it be feasible to install a DP switch inline to turn off the circuit? I could then have a genuine fitting that is unambiguously related to one of the cables. Is that something I would be allowed to do under part P or would I need to get an electrician in for it?

Bob

Reply to
Bob

Absolutely. Any DP switch suited to the max load will do. Generally they come as 10A (lighting), 20A (fixed appliance) and of course in cooker switch form for large loads. In your case, I'd size the switch according to the breaker rating to allow for upgrades at the far end, eg more lighting or extra sockets on the radial.

I assume the lighting branch is suitably fused (or is the radial fused low enough to qualify as a standard lighting circuit, which is 6A or 10A or 16A (last one being extremely rare in a domestic setting).

I'm not going to argue technicalities - just stick the sod in!

You're not altering the characteristics of the circuit (by much anyway - unlike, say, extending a ring or the far end of a radial circuit where it is *just* possible that you render the circuit protection aka breaker ineffective for certain faults) so assuming you can do a bit of "good workmanship" on it, it won't be any worse afterwards.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim Watts

It's a 20A circuit so a 20A DP switch should do the job.

The lighting branch is off a FCU in the cupboard. I didn't fit it myself and I've never needed to change a fuse in it so I suppose I ought to check what is in there. It's only supplying a couple of lights so a 3A fuse ought to be OK.

Thanks for the tips. Sounds like I might have a plan!

Bob

Reply to
Bob

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