Safe zones for cables

[Tricky Dicky]

I am trying to save myself a bit of unnecessary wall chasing and was and was wondering if a cable from another circuit shared the same chase as say a ring main to a socket but went beyond the socket to another wiring accessory could that cable be routed round the outside of the socket back box theoretically taking it out of the safe zone before continuing on in the safe zone? I have seen this done at my daughters new build where a feed to the garage shared a dropped chase with the ring main to a socket went round the socket before exiting the wall below the socket and always wondered if it was strictly legit?

Richard

[newshound]

Sounds reasonable so long as it is fairly obvious that the two boxes could be connected. No rule that different circuits can't share a single chase AFAIK.

[ARW]

I cannot find an excuse to do that on a new build.

Strictly going around a socket is against the regs, but I have done it hundreds of times.

[Mike Clarke]

The permitted zones are a vertical strip from floor to ceiling the same width as the accessory and a horizontal one the width of the wall and the same height as the accessory so you're only going outside those zones for a very short distance to get round the corners of the back box. So technically it would not be compliant but in practice it's not a location where anyone would be likely to drill holes so it shouldn't present much of a risk.

If you positioned the other accessory an inch or so to one side of the socket instead of directly above it then you would create a second permitted zone passing slightly to one side of the socket which would cover the bends in the cable.

[John Rumm]

I have done it on drops where say there is a socket below a light switch, and the cable drop from the top. In some cases I have routed the passing cables "under" the back box of the switch (i.e. set deeper into the wall).

[ARW]

+1

[Robin]

JOOI is this because there's not room to run the cable /through/ the socket box (and no room to use a deeper box)?

[John Rumm]

You quite often get that "for free" when the socket is a double and the accessory aligned above or below is a single.