clipping cables to stone walls

[Fash]

Most of the walls in my house are rubble stone and lime mortar. Unsurprisingly the lime mortar is too soft to hold a caple clip. Unfortunately the stone is far too hard, the nail doesn't even scratch the surface before bending over.

The only solution I can see at the moment is to put all the wire in conduit which is screwed to the wall (they are drillable) and then plaster over the conduit.

Anybody got any other cheaper/easier/quicker ideas?

Please, no mentions of Part P, I know all about it and I have a friendly NAPIT registered electrician who will inspect and provide an installation certificate!

Fash

[Frank Erskine]

You could replace the nails in the clips with very fine long screws, and plug the walls.

Or even glue the cable to the stone.

[Stuart Noble]

I noticed the NTL bloke using some kind of plastic plug that you hammered the cable clip into. Looked like he was drilling a 3mm or so hole. Haven't seem them around but no doubt electricians would be familiar with them.

[Chip]

On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:02:45 GMT,it is alleged that Stuart Noble spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:

Saw them years ago, I believe they were labelled 'pin plugs'. White, about 1" long by 1/8" diameter. At a pinch you could probably get the same effect by drilling and then plugging with thin dowel, preferably hardwood.

[Christian McArdle]

You can either either special rawlplugs designed for nails, or you can predrill a 2mm hole (experiment for the best size) before hammering the nail directly into that.

Christian.

[Adrian Berry]

Tower make them - "Pin Plugs", white plastic, require 5mm hole < smallest SDS drill size available! :-) >

Electrical wholesalers rarely stock them for some reason - I bought my last box from a B&Q Warehouse, shelved by the cable clips.

[Martin Angove]

Wonderful things, I use them all the time. At a pinch though a standard rawlplug hammered into a slightly undersized hole seems to work most of the time.

For example, I use #8 screws into red rawlplugs almost exclusively. In a "hard" wall (stone for e.g.) I'd normally use a 6mm drill to make the hole for the plug. In a softer wall (plaster over block perhaps) I might use 5.5mm. If I've run out of pin plugs and need to use cable clips then I would downsize these to 5.5mm and 5mm, and use the good ol' screwdriver to encourage them in, shaving off the top if I've misjudged and it won't go in all the way.

Hwyl!

M.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You can get tiny plastic wall plugs designed to accept the nails from cable clips for this very situation. Try a decent electrical wholesaler.

[usenet]

I have both 4.5mm and 5mm SDS drills, bought from Screwfix a while ago. They still list 5mm but I can't see the 4.5mm one any more.

[John Rumm]

Yup, very good they are too.

Last time I needed to clip a wire to a gravel board outside, I could not find my box of them. So I made some wooden plugs using a plug cutter into the endgrain of a bit of scrap hardwood. Seemed to do the trick almost as well.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

TLC don't list them, but I've seen them on the shelf in their Merton branch. Dunno about now.

Last lot I got came from Wholesale Fittings.

[Peter Parry]

Much quicker,

(or different sizes), expensive but very quick, simple and reliable. Drill the hole and push the fixing in (after putting it around the cable!).

[Martin Angove]

For normal domestic cables, I suspect something which is basically round and with a minimum usable diameter of 8mm may be slightly restrictive. Also at the lower end of its range, it's going to need a very deep hole. The pin plugs only need 15mm or so. Great idea for larger bundles, though I do wonder about its strength when holding an inch-diameter bundle of cables (as is suggested it is suitable for). Length of chunky SWA anyone?

Hwyl!

M.

[Peter Parry]

There are three ranges covering 3-13, 8-28 and 20-40.

About 20mm. I've used the smallest ones extensively for cat5, telephone and aerial cables and they are neat, simple, quick and reliable. I've clipped some 1.5mm T&E with them as well and the results were certainly better than I normally get with cable clips and in a small fraction of the time.

With the smaller ones in brick you can pull very hard on them and nothing moves, I've not tried the larger ones but I've used a similar wall plug but with a cable ties slot moulded on the end to hold 4" bundles of cat5 on a warehouse wall and it's been there several years.