In the process of replacing my wall lights.
There is one wall light I want to remove altogether (a TV screen will go onto this wall instead)- just not sure what to do with the wiring left behind for this light.
The 3 wires are connected to a 'plastic thing' (sorry amateur at work) which the wall light would have also been connected to.
Can I just poke the plastic thing back into the wall and plaster over??
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
No - that would leave a live cable buried in the wall with no way for somebody else coming along later to know it's there. What happens when the next occupant of the house (or you, 10 years later?!) decides he wants his TV in a slightly different position and drills new holes in the wall....
Proper way to sort this is to lift the floorboards in the room immediately above the wall concerned (assuming the cable goes up the wall, not down), and if possible pull the cable up and out, without disturbing the plaster. If it won't 'come', trace the cable from where it emerges from downstair's plaster [1], under the upstairs floorboards, to where it connects into the rest of the house wiring (likely a junction box under the boards somewhere) and disconnect it without disturbing any other connections. Then go back to [1] and cut the cable there. Remove the redundant length of cable; you're left with an isolated (safe) length buried in the wall if you weren't able to pull it free earlier.
David
Yes, but disconnect it from its live source i.e the ceiling rose or where its going to.
-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite
Thanks David.
Wiring goes up so I will check the roof space.
Now you point this out I feel pretty stupid..how glad I am that I posted this and did not just fill the hole and leave a live wire hidden, for, probably me, to find later.
Cheers.
A cable plastered into a wall unprotected must be obvious by the fitting it's going to, as it were. So if you remove that fitting, the cable needs to be disconnected at the other end. If that's impossible, chase out the wall at the end of the cable and fit a backing box and blanking plate to contain the 'plastic thingie' (connector strip).
OTOH, someone (you even) may want to move the TV later, and would like the lights back in their original setup without a gap. As we all know, it's a lot easier to take a cable out than to put one in.
Can't you put a box with a blanking plate over it (with, say, a small junction box inside to terminate the wires)? This will be hidden behind the TV, but makes it easy to put a light back there later.
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