Wanted - a way to get a cable through a hidden stud

[Andy Burns]

Or they use energy harvesting instead of a battery.

[Chris Green]

Hmmm! It's a long way down from the ceiling, like 6ft or so. And it's close under the eaves too.

[John Rumm]

although not a "permitted" cable route unless there were already some electrical accessory positioned in the skirting.

[Steve Walker]

For the sake of one additional cable in a house full of existing non-protected cables, would you really bother in your own home though? Especially where adding an RCD might mean changing the whole CU.

The requirements for RCD or mechanical protection, in a older house, only really make sense for sizeable work, where it may make a significant difference to safety, not for adding trivially to an existing installation.

Although I am planning to replace my lighting MCBs with RCBOs at some point in the near future, as replacements that fit my CU have become available recently (the previous versions would not physically fit).

[GB]

The price they charge, it ought to paint itself. :)

[Steve Walker]

I've often thought that it would be very useful (ignoring Part M) to use industrial type systems at home. You can buy cable ducting that looks like skirting, but slightly deeper and contains protected busbars and separate compartments for other cabling. Adding a socket means nothing more than popping off a cover, cutting a section out of it, clipping it back and clipping a socket into the gap.

That would be so useful for domestic situations. I put sockets, in sufficient numbers, in useful locations, but over the years, re-arrangements have left most of them behind furniture!

[The Natural Philosopher]

In the end you either buy cheap paint and put on 10 coats to get the colour depth or buy one that has enough pigment in it to start with. Even F&B is cheap compared to

(a) some 'designer' brands (b) The labour and all the other stuff needed to make a room look good

and it has a vast range of colours available

[Chris Green]

OP here, you have to be quite inventive to run a cable that's *not* horizontal or vertical from a fitting surely! :-)

Anyway I replaced my CU about a year ago and it's all RCBO now.

[John Rumm]

Nothing stopping you using dado or skirting trunking at home... if you like that boxy PVC aesthetic :-)

(actually it can look ok if painted - I had one customer that painted all theirs matt black to match the floor - looked ok, although they did paint over all the socket numbers as well, which made patching out stuff harder!)

[Steve Walker]

The version I was referring to includes busbars, so sockets can be positioned anywhere, later on, without any wiring. So sockets sit in the front of the trunking. When used as skirting, it'd fall foul of Part M of the building regulations, requiring sockets to be at or above 400mm.

Okay, you could put it in a room, without triggering part M, but doing the lot would suddenly put it into coming under part M and its height requirement.

The particualar one I saw was meant to be used as dado, but would have been good as skirting too - and looked a lot better for home use than the majority of ones that I have seen.

[Robin]

+1 But then when young I wanted to spend my life in a lab :)

[John Rumm]

So long as it was into an existing building and not a new build, then it would be outside the scope of part M if not making it any worse than before.

(and in *your* domestic setting, you probably are not going to invite the part M police to investigate!)

Presumably, having bus bars made it significantly more expensive and time consuming to install?

[Steve Walker]

It's very easy.

Think of a switch on the wall and a wall lamp on a wall that runs at 90° to it. If you run from the switch, to the corner, up within 6" of the corner and then across to the lamp, you are fine.you have two horizontals in line with the accessories and a vertical in the corner safe zone.

However, think of a switch and an accessory on the same wall in a kitchen extension, but with a boiler on the wall between them and the flue exiting through the top of the wall. You can't run a cable across from the switch and up to the accessory, because you'd have to remove the boiler to do so; you can't go up from both and use the 6" safe zone at the top, as the flue is going through it; you can't easily go up from both and run in the ceiling, as it is a flat roof, with no access; and you can't easily go down from both and run under the floor, because it is solid concrete, under a laminate floor, which extends under the skirtings. The obvious route involves dropping vertically from both switch and accessory and running horizontally below the boiler - which means a horizontal run that doesn't coincide with anything.

I'm heading that way. I ditched the RCD and changed all the RCD protected MCBs to RCBOs. I have not yet changed the non-RCD protected MCBs (lighting and alarm).

[Steve Walker]

Arguably it is making it worse. For instance my sockets are a little under 1' from the floor and putting sockets on skirting-trunking would lower them even further from the recommended height.

Oh indeed. Just as I didn't invite them in when I replaced a large section of ceiling in my son's bedroom, after a leak brought it down. It's already insulated and I did not want to get into having to improve the insulation or demonstrate why it was not practicable to do so.

More expensive and time consuming to install than normal skirting, but quicker than normal skirting plus chasing and making good walls for new sockets.

[Andrew]

Pre Part-P you would just have a new kitchen fitted by the 'professionals' and cables might go all over the place.

[John Rumm]

yes, it will depend on what is already there.

Ah, that would probably be the part L police - different branch :-)

Yup sure... I was thinking more in comparison to "normal" skirting trunking though.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Of course it is. ;-) Only option is to cut a hole in the wall, then.

[Tricky Dicky]

Chris have you decided how you are going to proceed? There has been quite a lot of talk of dropping the cable from above how easy that will be depends on a number of factors and the equipment you have to hand, metres of flat bit extensions and an endoscope seem a bit OTT if you do not have them already and are not likely to use them again. Coming from above avoids the stud but potentially means getting through noggins. A bit of judicious tapping on the wall should find any. Chances are that if the switch is at the standard 1.5m height then there may be no noggin to pass through unless you have very high walls most likely there will only be one noggin at approx mid point which should be below switch level. In some new builds where 15mm+ thick PB is used you may find no noggins at all as in my daughters house.

Your next consideration should be how much access you have at the light fitting and the switch. If the intention is not to fit a back box behind the fitting just have a hole for the cable then I suggest you mount your fitting on the next available stud drilling a cable hole beside it. From the loft I would drill the top plate along side the stud and likewise any noggins you may encounter using flat bits and extensions (should not need many as any noggins should not be far down). Drop a plumb line down, proximity to the stud should stop it wandering about enabling you to fish it out your hole. Alternatively if you have fibre glass rods use them. At the switch end temporarily removing the back box is the easiest thing, I did a similar thing at my daughters mind you I had rods to help me out. You can get an attachment for rods like a key ring that is secured round an existing cable and as the rod is pushed in it follows the route of the existing cable but relies on the cable not being clipped anywhere, again a plumb line may be all that is needed.

I still feel taking out a piece of PB across the offending stud is the simpler option avoiding crawling round the loft and particular if your access is limited by the angle of the eaves. As you have said earlier making the hole on the landing side may mean easier paint matching.

Good luck Richard

[John Rumm]

You can also get small lamps designed to screw onto the end of cable rods: