RE: [OT] ish Plastering over old sockets

["Hawes,Timothy Edward \(GEG\)" <haweste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kevin,

IIRC if you have a mechanical join in your cable then you need to make
it accessible (to comply with the Regs). If you solder the wires then
you can just plaster over. However, if you've looking at re-plastering
anyway, I'd be tempted to re-wire the kitchen and put the sockets &
switches where you wanted them. However, I'm not a qualified electrician
so one of the resident sparks might want to pass comment too :-)

As I'm sure you're aware, Part P applies now too, so I presume this was
just a hypothetical question anyway ;-)

HTH,

Tim.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kw1816
>
> I've just spent a wonderful two days chipping tiles off our
> kitchen walls and have uncovered one or two surprises. First
> off  was the three, yes three, eight  inch holes for the
> cooker hood extractor, 2 of which had simply been tiled over
> on the inside and a piece of wood screwed over the outside.
> Nice. And do you think any of them
> are in the right place for the new hood .........   AAAARRRGGHHHH !
>
> The other surprise was the backboxes for old sockets.  These
> were also tiled over and a quick prod with the voltage
> detector shows they're live, with the T&E in a bit of choc
> strip.  We don't need the sockets and want to plaster the
> walls so I'm wondering what's the best way to deal with them.
>
> The bodge part of me wants to squirt a bit of expanding foam
> in the backbox and skim over the top but I'm not convinced
> it's the best way to do it. They're on the same ring as the
> rest of the kitchen sockets.
>
> An suggestions ??
>
> Ta
> Kevin.