I'm tiling my kitchen and have taken a blanking plate off the wall close to the sink to discover what I knew would be there. somone has installed a backbox and connections for a double socket, realised it was too close to the sink and then blanked it off. what's the best approach here being of only limited electrical experience? Just put a new blanking panel over it again or get an expert in? can I sort this out properly on my own?
Tiling round it and placing a blanking plate back over it would be acceptable.
Other options will depend a bit on what else is there. The rules for routing of concealed wires say that they must be in line either horizontally or vertically with a visible accessory (or in a 6" strip adjacent to a corner or ceiling). So if you have another socket (or some other electrical fitting) that lines up with this one then you could get rid of it altogether.
Yo get rid of it you will need to ensure that the cables in there are correctly joined in a way that is ok to bury permanently in plaster etc.
Chances are there are two cables - one in and one out, and the wires have been joined together with a set of "chock block" screw terminals:
Details of how to crimp here:
Once any wires are dealt with you can fill the box with plaster and tile over it.
Would you use a gas powered iron for this? Or a double insulated one? (asuming you have RCD protection on that circuit) . It's something i've been puzzling over.
Yup, with a conventional iron there would be a fair chance that you would trip a RCD the moment you touched the circuit neutral. One option would be to either disconnect the circuit neutrals at the CU, or isolate the section you are working on by disconnecting it either side at adjacent sockets (electrically adjacent that is).
This is another reason why crimping tends to be a a more practically useful method.
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