Easiest way to surface mount cables on hard wall

[John Rumm]

+1

(although my recent experience with a 30mm SDS bit into engineering bricks does suggest they can snigger back at you a bit!)

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Have you thought of square or rectangular section trunking instead? The attachment options are a lot more numerous then, assuming of course the pvc is a good quality one. I've even seen that gorilla double sided tape used, but that depends on how wavy the wall inside is!

Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Depends on how long there is between sockets. Surely, pvc wire and pvc everything else is about the same as each other. I'm surprised they don't specify Pyro in a garage! Brian

[Theo]

Fair point on the carrying, threading and cutting, but I'd have thought you could make life easier using elbows rather than bending. Although not so easy if you're going to chase it. Is chased conduit standard for rewires these days, or was this a special case?

I agree it could be OTT for a garage if there's no risk of mechanical damage. But I thought it should at least be on the list of methods to consider, even if later dismissed.

Also, there's this stuff:

would be a way to protect surface T&E drops in a garage situation, although it doesn't solve the original problem of clipping and nailing.

I'd have thought putting mains electricity in cells would not be a good plan.

I'll happily come and apprentice for you, but I suspect I wouldn't last five minutes :-)

Theo

[Steve Walker]

People will always find a way if they want to.

On the psychiatric ward at the hospital my wife worked at, someone hanged themselves using the thin wire of their earphones. They knotted it and trapped trapped it over the top of the closed door to their room, put it around their neck and sat down.

[Owain Lastname]

Threading can be avoided with Conlok fittings with grub screws. They're more expensive than threaded, but save threading the conduit. Okay if you don't need too many, and don't have a threader thing.

Owain

[John Rumm]

That stuff is mainly for protecting buried cables after "first fix" from the ravages of a plaster's trowel. It's not really supposed to left "on show", and also is not that robust mechanically (afterall you fix it to the wall with nails, so it's a fairly safe bet it won't stop you nailing or drilling into the cable.

[Chris Green]

Yes, as I understand it anyway, *all* clipped cables need to have fire resistant clips. About the only exceptions as far as I can tell are cables resting on ceilings (which should of course be plasterboard which is fire resistant).

[Chris Green]

Still not 18th Edition compliant unless you add metal clips at intervals.

[Chris Green]

How will plastic/pvc conduit comply? Unless it has metal clips as well of course.

[Andy Burns]

How come cables aren't allowed though metal backboxes without a grommet, yet the quite sharp looking trunking clips are allowed?

[Tim Lamb]

Screwfix are still selling 20mm plastic saddles!

>

[Jack Harry Teesdale]

You've just answered your own question.

[Dave Plowman (News]

You live and learn. But I already have the dies needed.

[Robin]

The Regs include the wonderfully clear

"NOTE 4: Suitably spaced steel or copper clips, saddles or ties are examples that will meet the requirements of this regulation"

AIUI "suitably spaced" for the purpose of stopping cables falling doesn't mean you have to follow the spacing for other purposes. So could be a case of metal every other saddle.

[Theo]

I was more thinking of accidental damage in a garage from flying swarf, leaning/falling timber, cleaning, etc. Not much is going to resist an idiot with a nail gun. I was assuming it would be on the surface where you can see it and avoid nailing it.

Although you're probably right that if you can nail it it doesn't afford a great deal of mechanical protection, so perhaps not a lot better than PVC conduit, except in the case of hot things.

Theo

[John Rumm]

Suitably spaced for the purposes of good cable support, is quite a different beast from adequate support to stop the cables becoming a dangerous liability in a fire.

Hence you may have a clip every 200mm for support and aesthetic reasons, but only need a few fireproof fixings at a wider spacing to keep the cable retained in place during a fire (since at that point we probably no longer care about it looking neat!)

[John Rumm]

With capped cables the bulk of the protection comes from the wall shielding the cable from impact rather than the capping.

Also flush mounted stuff is far less vulnerable to impact than surface mounted.

(In my workshop all my wiring is flush mounted with the cabling mostly behind the ply lining. I opted for normal domestic plastic sockets, since you have to try fairly hard to clomp one directly and hard enough to do any damage. Whereas surface mounted plastic back boxes are much easier to "knock off" and shatter when moving big things about near them).

PVC conduit (especially the thick wall version) is pretty tough IME. You are unlikely to crush accidentally it with falling timber (in reality you are more likely to knock it off the wall).

Metal conduit come into it's own in applications where people might want to damage stuff intentionally, or where it might need to withstand directed heat for a period.

[PeterC]

Two points puzzle me: a horizontal cable on an external wall wouldn't droop very much - those to my lights have no more than a drip-loop spare and are at about 3m up

by the time that plastic plugs in a brick wall have melted anybody still there will be a body

Some of my internal wiring (house, not me personally!) is in vertical plastic trunking; the spare is a couple of cm in the patress so if it escapes it's going to stay put. Even if I open the trunking and pull out the cables they're only a few cm from the wall.

[Andrew]

Be honest though, in most garages there is 'stuff' parked up on the trusses or hanging from nails bashed into joists and all this is far more dangerous to anyone venturing inside. Being a garage though, it is not a habitable building so a fireman is unlikely to venture inside but just blast it with a jet of water anyway. Also, since it is not habitable, and not integrated into the house(?), are these new regs applicable ?.