I'm planning to re-hung 2 doors to open in the opposite way and want to change the light switches to suit.
They are on (very tough) brick walls, with very limited access to under floor/above ceiling, so no easy way to go about it without the need for quite major re-decoration after (which I want to avoid if at all possible...).
The builder who did our extension several years ago did a similar thing at our request to another door/switch. The guy that carried out the work was a qualified electrician that the builder employed.
I watched him at the time, and this is what he did:
- Crimped an extension to the cable(s) from the position of the "old" switch
- Chiselled/chased a shallowish (5-6cm) channel along the 15cm from the switch to be removed to the door frame.
- Chased a channel along the 15cm from the door frame to the position of the new switch.
- Chiselled a space for the new switch.
- Temporarily removed the door's architrave
- Ran the cable(s) along the channels and around the door in the gap behind the architrave to the new switch position.
- Replaced architrave
- Installed new switch
- Plastered over chased channels old switch.
Is this an acceptable solution? Does it comply with current regulation?
PS: He was responsible for a lot of electrical work at the time (very substantial extension), and I was less than impressed by the quality of his work in general (part of it perhaps was the result of constantly being rushed by the builder).