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UK electrical wiring
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nctnico:

--- Quote from: gnuarm on February 13, 2021, 05:32:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on February 13, 2021, 05:24:18 pm ---
--- Quote from: Majorbob on February 13, 2021, 05:21:19 am ---I'm looking at rewiring my house because it's awful and there aren't enough sockets where they need to be.  I've been brushing up on my knowledge of the IET regs and am wondering why the bottom of walls is not a "safe zone" (to use 17th ed terminology).  I like the idea of having the wiring going through the skirting as I have heated flooring and, to me, it seems a much more logical place to route it all for increased adaptability and ease of access in the event of faults or additions than burying it in the wall.  (For reference all walls are brick, including internal.)

--- End quote ---
If the walls are brick then I'd cut slits in them to facilitate extra wiring (in conduit -but don't use the flexible stuff; pulling wires through it is horrible-). You can rent machines to cut these slits. Building some kind of trunking onto the walls is beyond ugly.

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Brick!!!  Don't you guys add insulation at the inside face of the brick?  No framing?  No space to add insulation?  That is where wires are run in the US. 

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Over here it depends a bit on the build style but typically there is an outer layer (can be brick, wood, whatever), and insulation layer and inner walls (can be concrete or brick). Wiring conduit is integrated in the walls. From what I've seen from British home improvement shows they don't build home much differently.

In the US the building style is completely different though.
gnuarm:

--- Quote from: iainwhite on February 14, 2021, 01:10:36 am ---
--- Quote from: gnuarm on February 13, 2021, 05:02:55 pm ---I think my idea of skirting is not like yours.  Perhaps you can explain what that is. 

--- End quote ---

Skirting = Baseboard

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Ok, in the US I don't know if it is prohibited, but we pretty much never run wiring in the base board (we do have baseboard heating elements though).  I think in the UK there are a lot more older buildings that need to be accommodated.  Here there's not much that wasn't built with studs even if it uses something other than dry wall for the surface. 

We just don't seem to have problems with this. 

Oh, I very seldom see anything inside a brick wall other than stud construction.  I have seen a few colonial era homes with the same brick inside that is outside.  Brrrr... no insulation at all.  That was a long time ago and I don't know how the ran wires.  Probably just avoided that wall. 
james_s:
Surface raceways are relatively common here in some situations, I think they were especially popular in the 70s. They're a sort of conduit that consists of a backing plate that is screwed to the wall and then a rectangular cover that snaps on over it. It was used a lot for retrofit work, especially in commercial situations but I've seen it in homes too, especially in this situation where there's no stud space to run the wire through. Our cabin has some of the wiring done in raceways that are run along the exposed wooden beams.
themadhippy:

--- Quote ---I am rather curious about the best way to rewire a 1960's brick home, since cutting channels in the wall to bury the new cable seems to be too expensive/too much trouble for contractors to contemplate. Now if they had built the house in the first place with buried conduit,
--- End quote ---
If your lucky 60's era house has metal oval conduit buried in the wall that you can pull your new cables into,using the old cables as a draw wire,so avoiding any chasing,even if there blocked  they make chasing the wall out easier as its only plaster you  need to remove

--- Quote ---Cutting channels in plaster could be accomplished in a few minutes with an appropriately configured router
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yes theres proper chasing tools,bit like a circular saw with  2 blades,but they are very  messy and need some form of vacuum attached unless you want to be cleaning up for hours days,however the easiest option is to give the apprentice a lump hammer and bolster chisel and tell em to get on with it,once you get the knack you can  chop a box and chase out pretty quick,unless its engineering brick.

IanB:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on February 14, 2021, 12:59:29 am ---Being that it's the normal method of construction here, it's quite normal to deal with chasing out the plaster and a little brick if needed. The other option is surface trunking, which is cheap, fast, and ugly, and how pretty much every council home will have been done.

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I think the plaster isn't deep enough, it's only a skim on the surface of the bricks. Surely to cut deep enough to bury wiring you need to chisel out the mortar between the bricks? I remember when my father was installing spurs he spent quite some time with a hammer and chisel doing that. And the original wiring was installed the same way. Obviously cutting out holes for the boxes involves even more chiseling. The apprentices when they were building houses in previous decades must have had plenty of work to do.
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