Idiot kitchen installer drilled through my electrics

[Rob]

finished all the electrics in my kitchen. Have two cables in 38mm wide capping neatly plastered into the wall. 1 cable is for under cupboard lighting, the other is for a spur outlet for a cooker hood. Both are connected to the ring via switched double pole fused units.

My installer (ok, I know it's meant to be DIY, but I was running out of time doing stuff by myself), despite being given a cable detector and having the capping outlined on the wall in pencil with the word "WIRES" written on it, managed to drill a hole right through the middle of the capping.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

it looks like the drill may have gone in between the cables and may not have damaged them. Have checked both cables by connecting stuff to them. They worked and nothing tripped in the CU. Is there some sort of test that I can do using my Fluke 89 to see if the insulation really has been damaged?

Someone said I should fill the hole with silicon sealer instead of poly filler.

Any thoughts?

[John White]

[The kitchen installer]

Personally I would want to visually check the cables to see if there was any mechanical damage, rather than relying on test instruments in such a case.

It is usually possible to cut a small hole in the plaster and capping without doing too much damage.

I would use the filler.

John

[Ian Stirling]

No. At best you need a megger, but even that won't certainly detect cable damage. Consider a point on the live wire, where it's 99% sheared, and carrying all the load.

In practice, this is unlikely, however, the right way to do this is to expose the cables.

This isn't that big a job. Chisel/... a 100mm or so length to expose the capping. Now, using a hacksaw blade, cut carefully through the capping in one line, and bend the other side out. If OK, then simply slip a 50mm length of capping under the end, stick it in place somehow, and bend back down, before patching.

[Chris Bacon]

Why can't you tape some cord to the cable, pull it out and inspect it, and pull it back in if OK?

[John]

Don't guess! CAREFULLY scrape/trim away a bit of the capping so you can see what condition the cables under it are in. You can patch over it if they are OK. If they aren't you will have to replace the damaged bit(s)

[Dave Liquorice]

Why are you bothering about even thinking of investigating or repairing yourself. It's pure negligence on the part of the installer.

Get a few quotes from reputable sparks to inspect, fix, make good and

*tell* him to choose one. Then send the bill to him or deduct it from his fee (better).

Of course in these days of Part P I can't see how a "kitchen installer" cannot be a qualified spark, unless he is just a monkey hanging cupboards...

[PeteZahut]

Hope you dont mind me asking this but what would/could happen in this scenario?

Also what is the likely damage in this scenario?

Pete.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Same as a JCB digger and an 11,000V cable I mentioned a few weeks ago. There was no problem until someone showed him where the 11,000V cable was, and about 3 minutes later, pop and out when all the lights...

Since you used capping, can you use the existing cable to draw a new length in? Or is there enough slack to pull the potentially damaged cable area through to a box where it can be inspected? This is what I did above my bathroom ceiling when a friend who was helping me screw up the plasterboard put one of the screws straight through the conduit to the central light BESA box. As it happened, the cable was unharmed, but I would not know that without pulling it through enough to inspect it.

[Aidan]

Possible I'd think, but a ragged hole might shred the new cable insulation as it's pulled in.

[Ian Stirling]

The worst case would be a small fire, that if conditions are just right (combustibles next to wire), could escalate into a large fire, and possibly into a conflagration that sets the world alight.

This is unlikely, but not by any means impossible.

[Stefek Zaba]

If only... There's an extra-speshul Skeme for various trade monkeys to pay 200 quid to sit in a windowless room for half a day, and come out with a Sistificate to pronounce them Competent.

The price of joke Sistificates will probably come down, too, as the money-for-old-rope self-serving trade associations (not the NICEIC, but various 'professional kitchen installer', 'professional bathroom installer' associations run out of someone's garage cotton on to the boondongle.

Thanks, Mr Prescott, for making us all so much safer...

[Dave Liquorice]

And no doubt there is no way that a "member of the public" could do the same thing?

[Martin Angove]

'Twas on a Wednesday morning the electrician came...

[Martin Angove]

Silly me, shouldn't have just followed the first link. This one has a slightly better transcript, with the "pop" included:

[Andrew Gabriel]

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

I thought it was a Sustificate ?

[Ian_m]

Don't you complain, my neighbour had recently just had his kitchen refitted, a nice job compared to the original builders fitted kitchen, and fitters lad came back to supply and fit some missing shelves and managed to saw through rising main flooding the nice new kitchen till deep enough to flow over and out the back door !!!!!. Of course no one had a tool to turn water off in street, he couldn't phone his boss (who could have done something about it) as his mobile had been washed away. I think

Luckily damage was confined to kitchen and carpet of one downstairs room, but fitter fitted a nice new kitchen again as chipboard, even expensive 18mm (?) units chipboard does not take kindly to being immersed.