Running services in exposed blockwork walls.

[Dee J]

Just a point to ponder...

Many commercial buildings I visit have exposed blockwork walls inside (gyms, galleries, studios etc). Either painted or some nicer facing blockwork. Often these have flush electrical accessories. So the electrical services must either be a)on the other face of the wall, b)between the skins of a cavity wall c)threaded up through hollow blocks or d)the 'exposed blockwork' is actually a fake cladding.

Anybody got any experience of this... (c) especially? Where there is no clear delineation of wall construction/first fix... do the block layers thread flexi conduit in as they go?

And how common are hollow blocks in this sort of setting? And are they often infilled afterwards?

Thanks.

[Brickie]

Not done much commercial work myself but I know enough brickies to know what the outcome would be if you asked them to carefully embed some conduit

In the scenarios you describe,I’d imagine that the back of each wall is either in a cavity with a cladding system on the outside or some internal commercial space (office,store room etc.) so the cable runs could be penetrated from that side. 

[Dee J]

10 minutes ago, Brickie said:

Not done much commercial work myself but I know enough brickies to know what the outcome would be if you asked them to carefully embed some conduit

In the scenarios you describe,I’d imagine that the back of each wall is either in a cavity with a cladding system on the outside or some internal commercial space (office,store room etc.) so the cable runs could be penetrated from that side. 

Hmm. My suspicions exactly. Although I have found usa references to fitting blockwork over vertical conduit runs ( electrician working on site with block-layers)... I can't find much uk data.