I want to run my electricity cables and central heating pipes in oak conduit which is pretending to be skirting. The oak skirting is a decorative covering to metal conduit cos my electrician says that the wires need to be in metal conduit so I've been googling around but all I've come up with is round cross section conduit like screwfix pg 353.
I'd like to find a slightly larger rectangular cross section conduit so I can easily fix it to the back of my skirting. Can anyone help?
Anna
~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repair and conservation / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|
What I'm doing at the moment - insulating the whole house bit by bit, and also making a 5cm*5cm wiring conduit along the bottom of the wall, I simply am using some 2mm steel I happened to have lying around behind the skirting board.
I don't think you'll be able to run cables and pipes in the same conduit.
What you want is metal *trunking* at skirting level, with round metal conduit drops/risers up to individual accessories. This is normally wired using "singles" and you have to take care that the singles are completely mechanically protected and that all sections of the trunking are electrically continuous and bonded to earth.
The number and size of singles/cables you can run in trunking/conduit is prescribed by the IEE Regulations.
An industrial electrician will be more familiar with the system.
TLC list galvanised trunking in 2" x 2" 3" x 3" 4" x 4" and 6" x 6" sizes
Send head office an email informing them you wish to be taken off their mailing list for their catalogue,and that you will pick one up if and when you need one.
Yes the electrician looked dubious about that too. It seems like a daft rule to me cos I'm not planning to make the pipes leak but if they _have_ to be seperate then I will run the pipes outside the metal conduit and inside the oak one ... Thats always assuming ther aren't more regulations demanding that piping be run in a metal conduit ...
I dont know what 'singles' are - I'm guessing that is the description of a there and back pair of electrical cables?
How does this fit in with the rule that cabling can be completely unprotected so long as it runs straght up /down/right/left of a socket?
Actually I dont want to bury the cable directly into in the plaster but I thought perhaps I'd run it in plastic pipe (cheaper than metal?) so a second cable can be dropped down the pipe when a few years down the line I discover a desperate need for a new set of cabling. I'm particularly keen to NOT have to cut out the plaster and make good when that day comes
I just had a look at the guide to the regulations and I dont think I will have any problems there
I wonder if there is an industrial electrician reading this who would like to add their twopennorth?! I'm sticking with my electrician to do the work cos I trust him to do a good job
'galvanised trunking'
Thanks for your help Owain
For those with a desire to look, the screwfix online page with the conduit is:
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~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repair and conservation / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|
Your electrician is saying the cables need to in conduit because the area behind a skirting isn't one of the "safe zones." Enclosure in earthed metal conduit is only one of a number of options. Another would be to have the cables more than 50 mm behind the surface of the wall, but that might not be practical either.
All metal conduit is round, the standard sizes being 16, 20, 25, 32, 38,
50 and 63 mm (O/D). Metal trunking starts at 50 x 50 mm, AFAIK, which may be too large.
Another option would be to wire in something other than twin and earth cable. A cable type which includes an earthed metal covering over the live conductors avoids the need for any further protection. There's a prescribed list of acceptable cable types given (by BS number) in Reg.
522-06-06 of the wiring regs. Mineral insulated (MICC, aka "pyro") is one acceptable type and might be rather fitting in your fine historic residence. It provides a very high degree of fire safety and looks well on the surface of exposed beams. Just a thought, anyway.
I was thinking that the central heating pipes will be too warm to run cables next to.
"singles" are insulated single wires in different colours, instead of Twin&Earth which is single wires in a thick outer sheath.
up-down-left-right does not include behind the skirting boards.
Metal trunking and conduit installations need a high level of manual skills to do a workpersonlike job.
There are other types. I think the Houses of Parliament were wired in copper conduits because it doesn't rust.
As Andy Wade points out other cable forms might be more suitable, in particular MICC which is very suitable for high temp use; one needs to be aware that heat is conducted along the cable though and to ensure that the terminations at the accessories are not too hot from conducted heat.
IME as soon as you've bought anything from Screwfix, they seem determined to send you a larger annual volume of catalogues, flyers and special offers than the Yellow Pages ...
On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 19:14:07 GMT someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@freeukisp.co.uk (Anna Kettle) wrote this:-
In a cable the current carrying wires are insulated and then bound up in mechanical protection of some sort. In the typical Twin & Earth cable this mechanical protection is provided by the outer sheath (it only provides limited mechanical protection, but it provides enough for many applications). It can thus be run without further mechanical protection, in the appropriate places.
Singles don't have any mechanical protection (the limited mechanical protection provided by the insulation is discounted because the material is there for insulation). So they are enclosed in the mechanical protection of conduit or trunking. This protection must extend all along the run of the singles.
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