Question about Electrical wiring

Hi all

A friend of mine has had her house rewired and the electrician plastered over the cables. She thinks that the cables should be covered by conduit. But the electrician said the conduit is not required anymore due to the new regulations.

Does anyone know if this is correct?

Reply to
Big Dave
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im not an electrician, so i dont know the rules & regs, but we've just had an extension built & wiring work done & all the wiring was put into conduit before being plastered over.

Reply to
reg

I dont know about the electrical regs so cant answer on that one. The cable is put into conduit to stop the plaster eating away at the outer cables.

-- regards

Reply to
Urban Legend

Normal plaster will not eat cables and there is nothing wrong with clipping the cables and plastering over them. pg 210 of the 16th edition refers to this as Installation Method 1.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

I certrainly wouldn't wire an installation like that. To me it is a very sloppy way of doing things. All the cables in my house are burried in the walls inside 20mm pvc conduit. Makes it far easier if you need to do any maintenance work on the cables etc.

Reply to
the_constructor

I was told that by a electrician , I would think putting cables in conduit would be a good idea for maintenance etc.

-- regards

Reply to
Urban Legend

That is the difference between DIY and paying someone to do the work. Most people will not want to pay the extra for cables putting in conduit.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Conduit isn't (and never has been) required for straight cable runs which are horizontal or vertical from a visible wiring accessory (such as a switch, socket, etc), or run vertically near the corner of a room, or horizontally near the ceiling.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Several years ago I fitted wall lights and extra sockets without using conduit. The plaster wasn't thick enough to accommodate anything more than the cables & clips and I didn't want to excavate further as the inner leaf is brick. All the cable runs are vertical. I did however use junction boxes under the upstairs floorboards to complete ring circuits - is this permissible? and if not, what is the alternative?

Terry D.

Reply to
Terry D

I did however use junction

It is permissible to put junction boxes under the floorboards.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

I've heard this argument before about conduits helping with subsequent maintenace of cables, but what maintenance would a cable require?

Reply to
Jardov

None, unless the cable gets damaged or is due for a rewire.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Typical "maintenance" is to want to add another lighting circuit and another way on the light switch. If the conduit/ trunking whatever has enough spare space, it may be possible to pull one or more extra cables down to the switch, without requiring re-plastering, painting etc.

So I usually put oversize conduit/trunking to light switches, as the extra cost is pretty small and the trend does seem to be for more than one lighting circuit in many rooms.

Reply to
Palindrome

Something that I have thought about doing is fitting an extra double socket at the side of existing double sockets. If say a double socket is fed from above in a ring main circuit, and an additional socket was required at the side of it, is it acceptable to feed the new second socket with a single short length of 2.5 twin and earth, or has the new socket got to be incorporated fully into the ring main? To do this would normally require a longer length of cable from the previous socket in the ring and the existing socket/new socket to achieve this, or is there an alternative way to correctly wire the new socket from the existing socket without replacing the longer existing cable. If a new length of cable has to be fitted, I was thinking this would be a good reason for having cable running through conduit, as one of the existing cables could be easily pulled out, whilst at the same time pulling in the new longer cable.

Reply to
Harry Stottle

Check out the rules for adding a spur off an existing socket. In general you can run a cable from an existing socket on a ring main to feed an additional spur socket - unless this has already been done.

Or, of course, you can buy a special double socket that will replace a single and a special triple that will replace a double - with no wiring alterations and typically no decorating/ hole cutting or whatever.

Reply to
Palindrome

You cannot spur off a spur but there is nothing stopping you taking two spurs from one point on a ring. The basic rule is "no more spurs than points on the ring".

The triple ones have a 13amp fuse built in and this may be a limiting factor if the socket was in a kitchen where a high load may be expected.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Thanks to you both for the replies. Most walls in this house have gaps behind the plasterboard, and the plasterboard is stuck on cinder blocks, so cutting out for a new box is not a big problem.

Reply to
Harry Stottle

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