I have two outdoor lanterns to fit, either side of my front door. They seem to be designed for the cable to enter from the rear, ie through the wall, which isn't possible. Is it acceptable to chase the cable into the mortar joint, so that it emerges behind the lantern?
cheers Richard
If you have a cable that has to come up or down the surface of the wall, then you have three options. One is to do as you suggest - hack away some wall or mortar to get the cable behind the fitting. Another is to modify the fitting to allow a cable entry notch (not always possible or desirable), the other is with a spacing block of some sort - a decorative wooden plinth etc that will stand the lamp away from the wall and allow space for the cable entry.
through
cable
Pattress block they were always called.
AWEM
Some lights have marks that you break (hacksaw first) for top/side/ bottom entry, otherwise you just run say a black cable on a mortar line then dip into it slightly to go behind the light.
You can not run a cable buried in mortar further because no-one would know where it is, unless it is one suitable for such which for practical purposes would be BS8436 which is nearly always white. Basically an FP200 look-a-like which has a foil which passes the BS8436 nail test. I guess zones exist, but that normally limits you to horizontal unless you have a rather odd brickwork layout :-)
Most people use 0.75mm or 1.0mm H05RNF or H07RNF for outside lighting,
1.5mm H07RNF is a bit oversized though. Screwfix do 25m of 0.75mm H05RNF very cheaply, about =A312 as I recall, black, neoprene rot proof, pretty small diameter, needs a 3A fuse in a FCU or SFCU somewhere though.
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Thanks John, those were the options that occurred to me. A plinth would look untidy, modifying the fitting might allow water ingress, hence my thinking of the third - I wondered, however, whether iot was considered safe or desirable to mimic the safe zones that apply indoors, by hiding the cable invisibly in a mortar joint - someone in the future might infer that the cable came through the wall into the back of the lantern, and bang something into the wall where the cable was. I suppose the worst they could do is flip an MCB.
Cheers Richard
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