Del-inquent

Any other views on this? I can't see why it should be a bad idea to run the SWA in conduit, but then I've been wrong before, so my wife tells me.

Would get in the way of mowing the grass between the house and workshop a little if I surface run it 😁

I seem to be asking a lot of questions on conduits recently, so here's another. I'm prepping for an electrician to come and run power to the garden workshop - nothing major just for a couple of sockets and lights. He has specced 6mm2 SWA to give redundancy in case I want to add more later. I knew we had a high water table here, but didn't realise just how high. I dug the first 6ft of trench down to 500mm, stopped for dinner, went back out and it's half full of water, it's not rained in a few days and been very sunny! I happen to have some 32mm flexi conduit sat here from when Virgin installed their cable to the house. Would it be wise to throw some of it in the trench to run the SWA through, and bring it up either end to above the water level, so the cable is not permanently sat in water? Any bright ideas on plugging the ends of it? Any downsides to doing this, or any other issues I've not considered?

I'll be making them myself, I'm debating just hacking up some MDF and PVA gluing to the walls as a test to see if I notice or not lol

that’s what I’m doing in one of the rooms, but this difference is huge and making it up either makes the panels much larger or much smaller. I guess unless I make the other side a lot smaller, so I can have less to make up. I was aiming for a panel size around 500mm but will have a play and see what happens if I stick another panel in on the longer wall.

Wife wants half wall panelling throughout most of the house. Happy wife happy life n all that sooo... I'm sure this is just a "whatever you want" type question, but I'm struggling to visualise it so thought I'd see if anyone else had any ideas. Wall down left side of the hall is 3820mm long then goes around a corner. Wall down right side of the hall is 1485mm long then hits a series of doors. If I do 6 panels with 100mm stiles on the left wall, each panel will be 430mm long. 430mm isn't divisible into 1485 with 100mm stiles... So is it normal to either go with next full panel size up / down (2 panels on right wall, each panel will be 592mm long, or 3 panels on right wall, each will be 363mm long, neither close to 430mm long panels of other side) or do you start at the beginning and just have a fractional panel when it gets to the door or...?

Clever, I like that!

When you say buried… the insulation (190mm thick!) will have to have a chase cut out of the underside, as the conduit would lay on the concrete slab and the insulation going over the top. With my cutting skills probably end up with the chase in the insulation being twice the size of the conduit 😂 but as it’s 190mm thick that doesn’t worry me, does that count as “buried”?

Okay so just to throw a curveball in, we went with flexi conduit option for a few reasons, however after getting a load done another problem arose which means we are now looking at ripping up the whole ground floor and insulating / screeding (which I’ve got lots of very helpful advice on here about) is there any reason that the conduit can’t just sit under the insulation and screed? Sparky scratched his head on that one.

Just had a chat with them, very helpful people. Can't sell to me direct but gave me the name of a contact they sell to regularly that can help. Cheers for that!

S.E was definitely not happy about that idea. I'm just not sure on what his alternative proposal involves. DPM, chuck a tonne of PIR board in to fill up the void then minimum screed on top of that by the sound of it? From the reading I've done this morning that would need 65-75mm screed, I think. Would 75mm screed atop 175mm insulation atop a concrete raft be good? If I wanted to throw in UFH while we're making a mess, would I need to increase the screed?

Structural engineer came round today to assess if a few things were possible. While here we touched on the subject of our ground floor, which is generally sh!te with a touch of "it'll just about do" thrown in here and there. From work carried out last couple of weeks, it seems we have a raft foundation. The raft has dwarf walls on it, joists on those, total is about 270mm between top of what I assume is the concrete raft and the top of the current floorboards. I asked about ripping all the wood out and just filling with concrete, he's not happy about the weight loading if it is just a raft. He suggested we could consider putting a tonne of insulation in the void and just the minimum screed on top of that. Didn't get to talk any further on it as time was up but I'm now wondering about this approach. Not something I have any experience whatsoever of so looking for any info, suggestions, methods, cost...

The vermin problem appears very minor and historic, but is going to be addressed during the works - there is only one place they could be getting in / out without running around inside the house. I think the electrician is more worried about the floors, which won't come up easily in future in any way shape or form. Run to CU is definitely easy as that's being replaced and first socket is 4ft from it! My main issue with the size of conduit though is from CU down, there are already chases around CU and I think it'll start to get a bit "thin" in those parts. Maybe I should just cap from CU to first socket and conduit from there onwards?

So you basically ended up with a ring made of 4mm2? Only reasons I've not thought on radials are a: I've never planned a radial, so was trying to avoid learning something new at a time where I'm already working 15 hour days 7 days a week 😅 b: the house is a small chalet basic box, the layout of sockets looks like a big circle, so it made sense to join the ends up. Maybe I should rethink!

I asked the same question, we'd have to do it in one hit to do that which isn't possible, we simply can't do it for a number of reasons. (life has a habit of being an a**e at times). The existing ones have been under the floor for 80 odd years and not done too badly, the flexi allows us to get it ready a little at a time. I just have no idea how it is usually put in lol

This is probably going to sound like a REALLY dumb question, apologies I have never used flexi conduit before so literally clueless on it. We're having to do our refurb in little bits, but need to prepare for the GF ring to be replaced eventually. We have been advised as it's being run under the floorboards (which are being replaced a room at a time) it would be easiest to run flexible plastic conduit in with pull chords fitted as we go which will a: give a bit of added safety as there has been some historic rodent activity and b: leave it ready for them to then pull wires through later once ready. All new socket chases will be done as well (because they're currently at skirting height) so we thought we might as well meet current regs and put them at 450mm, which will help me as I've got a knackered back. How do you physically route the conduit with a ring? The ring has obviously got to go up to each socket then then back down to continue the ring, so one flexi chased into the wall with both cables in seems the obvious way to do that, but what happens under the floor as (again obviously) the ring splits goes off in two directions from each socket. Can you get Y adapters for it? Or do you have to chase two flexi's in the wall for every socket and have a single cable in a way oversize conduit for the task? Or can you get smaller than 20mm flexible plastic conduit?

They're all running within 150mm of corner of room so thankfully not a problem, but a good shout on sticking a socket as a way around it, hadn't thought of that!

Fortunately new position is almost directly opposite old CU position just on the other side of the wall, so nearly all the cables will just be poked through and remain as-is. Only really the GF ring main which will need a new chase and is being replaced anyway, so that'll go in a safe zone too

About 80 yrs old 😂 I’ve been debating the blocks used as they have all the look and feel of breeze blocks but for some reason they cut really nicely! Had to chase a few bits and bobs in and there and unlike any breeze block I’ve cut before, these you can get an almost polished finish on! must admit I don’t fully understand the difference between cutting into a structural cavity wall and cutting into a structural internal wall. They’re both structural afterall

It’s 1/3rd vertical and 1/6th horizontal - though I’ve yet to look into over what length that applies to as obviously you’d not be able to recess any box on that basis if it was absolute! I assume it means over a longer cable length, rather than as a small section (otherwise you’d not even be able to sink a 35mm double socket into a 100mm block wall!)

Makes sense. This might be a really dumb question (I'm very good at those...) but is there any reason that I couldn't partially recess a Wylex CU? I was looking at what options there are on recessed CU's and happened across a thread in another group where they were discussing sinking in a Wylex, who also provide flush-fit face panels for the same boxes. If the box is okay to be fully recessed, or mounted fully surface mount, I couldn't think of any reason it couldn't be partially recessed! Only reason I am thinking of it is because the surface mount ones all have the top and bottom knockouts, and look a bit cack as a result.

yes so there’s two places the CU can go in the same corner - either on the internal leaf of the external wall, just to one side of the external meter box, or on an internal dividing wall that as you say is perpendicular to the external wall that the meter box is in. The edge of the meter box is basically at the end of the perpendicular wall, and the CU would be mounted in the corner whichever wall it is decided on, so drilling through will be in exactly the same place either way! probably help if I drew a diagram out tomorrow of the two options. main query is if it’s okay to sink a recessed CU into a single skin internal block wall as then it would be accessible but unobtrusive in the room.

Wall behind it is having most of the plaster / render taken off, and there will be a full height kitchen cupboard going in later so will be very well hidden! it’s where all the current cables go anyway so half are already there

Can anyone confirm if 25mm swa is preferred to loop up and in cavity of if just some double insulated tails are okay?

That’s precisely what I’ve asked? From a regs perspective can you fit a recessed into a single skin internal wall, or do they have to go into an external wall?