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Detecting wiring behind plaster in plastic ducting


8ball

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Seems like such a simple question but I could not find a clear answer,

 

I'm about to have a plasterer come in to plaster the kitchen and dinning room, I have chased out my runs for the wiring and have used plastic ducting to protect the cables.

 

My question is once the rooms are plastered how easy is it to find the wiring runs as plastic ducting does not help with detection, is there some kind of tape you can apply to the plastic ducting before plastering a bit like the tape that John Guest provides for pipe detection in walls.

 

Any advice much appreciated :-)

 

 

 

 

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I find mine using my friendly Bosch wall radar system. (https://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-gms120-digital-wall-scanner/76455?tc=AT5&ds_kid=92700022888077067&ds_rl=1249796&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1249484&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIv7ThnM6A2gIVr7_tCh08aQBpEAQYASABEgL5z_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CObfsJ_OgNoCFUkw0wod4rMAng) Of course you can get it from many other suppliers!

 

It won;t be long though before your battery drill will be able to see what it is drilling into and will just beep at you if you pull the trigger while hovering over something it thinks might bite back!

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13 hours ago, 8ball said:

Seems like such a simple question but I could not find a clear answer,

 

I'm about to have a plasterer come in to plaster the kitchen and dinning room, I have chased out my runs for the wiring and have used plastic ducting to protect the cables.

 

My question is once the rooms are plastered how easy is it to find the wiring runs as plastic ducting does not help with detection, is there some kind of tape you can apply to the plastic ducting before plastering a bit like the tape that John Guest provides for pipe detection in walls.

 

Any advice much appreciated :-)

 

 

 

 

 

Erm.....you might find the copper wires show up really well! I assume the cables are already in the ducts?

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9 hours ago, Onoff said:

 

Erm.....you might find the copper wires show up really well! I assume the cables are already in the ducts?

 

Seems that when copper wire is buried to deep my detector does not pick them up, I even borrowed my dads more expensive detector and had the same problem.

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I'm lost! :)

 

Do you have the back boxes in the wall and visible? If so what's the issue - as said above cable runs should have been vertical or horizontal from each switch/socket location.

 

Or is it that the cables are in but the box locations boarded over and you intend plastering first and cutting holes for dry lining boxes later?

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On ‎3‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 09:00, 8ball said:

I'm about to have a plasterer come in to plaster the kitchen and dinning room, I have chased out my runs for the wiring and have used plastic ducting to protect the cables.

 

My question is once the rooms are plastered how easy is it to find the wiring runs as plastic ducting does not help with detection, is there some kind of tape you can apply to the plastic ducting before plastering a bit like the tape that John Guest provides for pipe detection in walls

 

I assume you have put wire in the conduit?

 

Fit back boxes now and coil the excess wire up in them. A good plasterer will manage to avoid filling the back boxes leaving them visible. At worse you might need a hand held tap to clean out the face plate screw holes.

 

I once had a summer job with an electrician fitting face plates in an office block. On one floor we had a face plate left over. Turned out the plasterer had gone right over the back box so well it was invisible. The electrician found it with a metal detector but to send the plasterer a message he also dug holes all over the place so the plasterer would have to come back.

 

Edited by Temp
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Hey everyone thanks so much for the advice, I have no problems with back boxes I just wanted to be able to trace my wire run locations precisely as I have quite a few sockets in the kitchen and don't want to drill/screw through them when mounting cupboards.

 

I think it comes down to my naff equipment for detecting the wire, I'm going to purchase a a tone generator and sniffer as dpmiller mentioned.

 

Again cheers for the advice guys;)

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