cables in walls - horizontal from sockets?

Hmmm... try this, from a property I did up not long ago (and yes, I did completely rewire it!):

Yes, horizontal is fine

David

Exactly what I did in my kitchen for the above worktop sockets. If you're going to tile, it might be worth not chasing (or cutting) out totally for the backing boxes, but wait until tiling time, so they fit nicely between tiles.

Yes. It is absolutely by the book to do so. I've done it here (silly to go up-down-up-down when your ground floor is concrete).

The original cooker outlet (early '70s professional install) in my house was diagonal and without steel capping.

Because of their physical position, they're often easier to run from the lighting circuit.

I wasn't talking about a cooker hood, but the main cooker point. Either they were short of 6(?)mm cable that day, or they didn't like the thought of trying to bend it to keep it horizontal/vertical.

During the same kitchen refurb where I found that, I also found that when the kitchen extension had been build, the bonding from the CU to the incoming water main had been sliced straight through by angle grinder when they formed the new opening the wall ...

On Sat, 22 May 2010 11:02:21 +0100 someone who may be Andy Burns wrote this:-

So?

Running unprotected cables diagonally was not frowned upon until IIRC sometime in the 1980s.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember David Hansen saying something like:

It was always a bloody stupid thing to do.

Yes.

It can be an advantage to run mains cables vertically and audio / signal cables horizontally as this helps cut down interference. Also means it's easier to mount phone etc outlets alighned aligned with the mains sockets.

Owain

I noted recently on one of those DIY SOS programmes that the team brought in to rectify a DIY bodger's work ran cables diagonally to sockets. I wrote to the TV company concerned about the installation, but predictably I received no reply.

I know there is one such cable in my house, but I can also understand why - a vertical drop would bring the cable down directly on-top of the RSJs supporting the floor between the house and the extension. It's wrong and if I ever get round to re-wiring the extension I'll sort it (I did the rest of the house when I moved in). In the meantime, as I know about it it's no great problem.

SteveW

There are places where I'm not sure that the horizontal/vertical rule improves safety. In my kitchen when the electrician fitted the extraction hood he ran the cable vertically from the switch until he reached the height of the cooker hood then horizontally from that point to the hood. Then the plasterer plastered over everything. There's now nothing to show the run of cable behind the plaster and to me a diagonal run from switch to hood might be more obvious than the current installation. It's not mine to reason why in this case, someone else done it, guv.

If there's an RSJ involved then it's even harder to locate the cable using a cable finder.

Yes.

I have done it in a number of circumstances - when installing in a stud wall at built time, or when installing a run of sockets in relatively close proximity - say for a workshop or kitchen.

In message , Steve Firth writes

I'll second that. I was working in a cellar that had twin 13A socket all around the wall spaced about 10' apart at about 4' above the floor, I opened a couple and the wiring was horizontal. Fair enough, the unit I was mounting was at about 6' above the floor and half way between 2 sockets,

Turns out that the ring came from above and then split left and right, half way between 2 sockets. No prizes for guessing where I drilled........... Why they didn't fetch it down above a socket I'm not sure and why I didn't use my cable detector I'm even less sure.......

Zones...

- Vertical Corner-Corner 150mm

- Vertical from a wiring accessory

- Horizontal Ceiling 150mm

- Horizontal from a wiring accessory

- Intersection of Vertical-to-Horizontal formed by 2 wiring accessories

- Reverse of wall 50mm from finished surface rule.

If you have cable out of zone, or 50mm from the finished surface (not likely with Building Reg "A" chase depth limit). However for practical reasons BS8436 1.0-1.5-2.5mm is "made for just this situation", installed like FTE (no glands to remain accessible for Inspection & Testing), as long as protected by

Then the vertical drop was not in zone :-)

Quite, horizontal or vertical from a visible accessory and a 150mm band in the corners and at ceiling level? Which should help with the accessory vertically below and RSJ, vertical to the rasj then around either side of it. IIRC 17th ed may well have changed things, even if my memory of 16th is right. B-)

Diagonal is bad, steel capping is irrelevant as its only there to stop the plasterer from damaging the cable.