Cutting Electric Cable

[pyramids.of.mars]

Hi

To cut a long story short.....

Bog standard electrical socket cable running under the floorboards. I need to reroute it and can only do so by extending its length. Rather than rewiring, my question is would the Part P Building Regs permit the cutting of the cable to let in a new length of ~ 1 metre ?

I'll have my electrician formally assess this, but as he's not around for a few days I'm hoping someone can advise as it has ramifications for my builder in the middle of a major extension project.

Cheers Gareth.

[thankyousam]

Unless this socket is in a special area, e.g. kitchen or outside, then I do not belief that extending or modifying an existing circuit is notifiable under the terms of Part P. Just add in a junction box and make sure you isolate the circuit beforehand :p

You should ensure your new cable is run in a permitted zone and manner in accordance to the latest IEEE wiring regs. If you end up adding new colour cable (brown/blue) to old colour (red/black) then I believe the wiring regs say you should add a notice to the consumer unit saying it is a mixed colour installation.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you mean the wiring regs then yes you can use a junction box to do this as it's considered to be in an accessible place.

Part Pee can generally be ignored for this sort of thing even if it applies because who is to know when the work was done?

[pyramids.of.mars]

have just got home and taken a look....

I won't need to add in a length of cable, but would need to cut the cable (actually there's 5 of them) once, feed them through a centered whole the a new joist, then reconnect the cables...

problem with a junciton box is that it would be under the floowbards and thus not that immediately accessible - would that be an issue ?

thanks

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

[Andrew Gabriel]

From memory, I don't think that is in the list of things for which you can avoid submitting a buildings notice. However, if you were to cut through them all with a circular saw, then you can repair the damage without a building notice. Don't you just love Part P...

If you are competent at electrical soldering, another way is to use junction boxes as normal, but solder the terminal connections. However, don't try this unless you are already very good at electrical soldering or you'll just create a mess.