Hi All, my joiner bless him, has boarded all the vaulted ceilings in the house and forgotten where all the wires for the spot lights are, sparky is playing hell, ceilings have been skimmed to boot. Anyone any ideas on how to find them, we can't make them live and detect them as most are just wires ready to make up loops, I'm hoping someone will come up with something that will stop the ceiling looking like an Edam. Cheers Bod
On 31 May 2005 09:51:46 -0700, "Bod" strung together this:
Tell your electrician he's a tit and he should have measured out where they are and noted it down for just this occasion. If he moans, tell him he is an arse. If he rips half the ceiling down to find the cables, tell him he is paying for a new ceiling, and that he is an arse.
If you've access to one end of the wires, there's cable-tracing equipment you can buy or hire - don't need to inject 240VAC; the kit I'm thinking of gets used for datacomms (computer network) tracing.
If you've pieces which are entirely inaccessible, your only chance is to do 'generic' metal detecting, with something decent like a Zircon (full-priced but quick delivery at rswww.com, several models by Zircon and others under Products -> Test & Measurement -> T & M Equipt -> Electrical Test -> Cable & Metal Detectors. Without a signal in the cable, you're only going to find it within, in reality, a couple of inches of the surface, in my experience. If you really really really crawl to your sparks, he might buy the locator off you for say half what you paid for it, to make the wallet shock a bit less severe to you. (And if he's *really* on the level, he won't pad up his bill by that other half, either ;-)
Otherwise, get ready to make a number of say 1-inch diam holes, big enough to get a little inspection mirror up one and a thin floursecent inspection lamp up t'other, and enjoy a game of 'fish the cable' with bits of galvanised wire with a hook bent in the end ;-)
Best of luck - Stefek
Yes, and then tell him he's a plonker while your at it.....
what you need is a tone tracer like the ones BT use. Unfortunatly it wont find the loop end wires but if you find a few of the live ends it will possibly make it a little easier to guess the rest.
What about a fibre optic or small camera, will still leave you with a few holes but might be better.
On Tue, 31 May 2005 18:35:32 +0000 (UTC), "Paul" strung together this:
Not just BT, I use several, with different tones. They're only about
40GBP from
Perhaps having the live ends available will jog his memory a bit, the tit.
There is also the chance that this won't work, as tone set isn't overly sensitive at any distance. If the cables are a reasonable distance from the plasterboard then it might not work at all.
I have to agree with Lurch on this one, your sparky must be a moron to not know where the cables would be !!
I suppose there are loads of nails in the boards so a metal detector i of no use?
how about make the holes for the lights anyway (where you want them and then fish for the wires with coat hangers
-- wig
Why can't the sparks cut the holes for the lighting, and then stick a hand in with a hooked wired to feel for the cables? It's not going to make any more holes than you need, and with a fishing wire he'll feel the cable and pull them out. Even if the cables are all in one bundle right in the center of the void, they'll be easy to find.
Crazy bugger if he doesn't know where he fixed the cables to match the lighting points.
Cant really blame electrician, he had agreed with man who puts boards on that he would pull them through, there wouldn't be a problem if there was no Insulation at back, there is 100mm of kingspan. The question is, is there anything that will detect the copper? the plastic? through 100mm of Kingspan + 12.5mm board, the ceiling already looks like a piece of cheese, the goood think is I aint payed the joiner for boarding yet so hopefully this will pay for the repairs, any other ideas and help will be appreciated, any comments on how ridiculous the situation is will not, fools state the obvious, engineers solve the problems
I would go with Wig & BigWallops idea of cutting the holes anyway and fishing around for the cables - if the sparky has done his job reasonably well the cables should be in reach fairly easily, good luck.
Appreciate the reply but----- when you cut the hole away (75mm) your hit the 100mm of insulation, you then only have 50mm to the roof felt, so there aint much room for fishing!!
But your sparks should be used to it, if he's any good that is.
Absolutely no help for your predicament, but with the advent of digital cameras (and a lot of hindsight) it would've been wise to take photographs of the layout before the final stages to help you locate pipes, cables and the like.
Similarly, when dismantling some complicated piece of machinery it may be worthwhile to photograph the stages of dismantling to aid reassembly later. How often have you dismantled something then there's been a couple of days delay to acquire a new part and then you realise that your memory isn't as good as you thought it would be... aaaargh!
Mungo
P.S. No way to find the wires from the OTHER side of the ceiling? Remove a few tiles maybe and fish about?
Get hold of an endoscope and look for the cables?
Edam it is then
ROFLMAO!!!!! Poor man. :(
So continue the hole up through the kingspan. The wire has to b there. Presumably he placed the wire between the relevant rafter prior to the joiner coming along and fitting the kingspan an plasterboards
-- wig
yep, just refit the lot. Anything else is pointless. Unles youve got access to one end of the cables, which you should have, then you can inject rf and trace the cable paths.
Hey, Edam can be made to look like a deliberate style :)
NT
Emmentaler?
Did this when replacing a PSU on my big plotter, and was eternally grateful that I had.
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