Elec wiring and Plastic trunking

[ac1951]

Are there any specific rules regarding the use of plastic trunking ? I know someone who has recenty had there house re-wired and the cables leaving the CU go via a 2"x1" plastic trunking ajacent to a window and hidden by the curtains. A power socket feed routes through a store cupboard again enclosed in plastic trunking then through the wall to a socket in the dinning room. All power into the kitchen runs intially down a plastic trunking then behind the fitted units.

Is this now becoming the preference in place of chipping out the plaster and burying the cables ?

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[Owain]

Plastic trunking is cheaper than chasing out the walls for cables, and makes less mess. The cables can be sunk when the room is next redecorated.

The latest Wiring Regulations make it harder to run ordinary cables in walls unless the circuits are RCD protected, but I would have expected them to be if the whole rewire was done to 17th Ed. Regs.

Owain

[Andy Wade]

It's not uncommon to find in that sort of situation that the 'standard' cable sizes have been used, without any consideration of cable grouping factors. If properly designed the sizes required can easily become excessive and splitting the outgoing circuits into sub-groups in separate spaced conduit or trunking runs would be a better option.