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Connected can mean related. I think a lot of folk think of it like I do.
Some certainly do. However, one can see some sense in a requirement for a cable to be 'terminated' (including 'joined') within the accessory/whatever, since it would otherwise be possible, at least in some cases, to remove the visible item whilst leaving the buried cable in situ.

Having said that, I agree that anything visible to indicate the presence of a cable is certainly 'better than nothing' (I've even seen 'blank plates', with no backbox, screwed to walls.

Kind Regards, John
 
re connected, I think the point is a socket at floor level fed from below wouldn't make a safe zone up high for an unrelated cable. But if you take the lid off and see the cable, that's good enough. You can always chop the cable and put a terminal block in there just to be on the safe side though!
 
re connected, I think the point is a socket at floor level fed from below wouldn't make a safe zone up high for an unrelated cable.
Indeed. I certainly don't think that any cable can 'make use of' a safe zone created but something 'unrelated' - since the 'something unrelated' could be removed, leaving the other cable not in any safe zone.
....But if you take the lid off and see the cable, that's good enough. You can always chop the cable and put a terminal block in there just to be on the safe side though!
Yes, if the cable goes through the backbox, then it's much less likely that the 'visible evidence' will be removed.

Having said that, it's not foolproof. A good few years back, when renovating/decorating in a house which one of my daughters has just bought, we discovered a back-box-shape of new plaster on one of the walls. A bit of excavation revealed a metal back box which had been filled/covered with plaster, with a ('live', but fortunately unbroken) cable travelling through it!

Kind Regards, John
 
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Connected can mean related.
I think a lot of folk think of it like I do.
You need to be very careful not to "interpret" the regulations to mean what you want them to mean if that is different to what any normal sensible person would take them to mean using normal, sensible definitions of words, and that meaning is inconvenient to you.

In other words, in the context of cables connected to a point, accessory or switchgear, if "everybody knows" that connected means "physically connected", not "related to", then don't go for the twisting of "related to" because you find "physically connected" inconvenient.
 
Yes, if the cable goes through the backbox, then it's much less likely that the 'visible evidence' will be removed.
I agree.

But no matter how much we, or Paul Cook, agree, the regulations don't.

If one were to install a cable like that one would have to document it as a departure.
 
A good few years back, when renovating/decorating in a house which one of my daughters has just bought, we discovered a back-box-shape of new plaster on one of the walls. A bit of excavation revealed a metal back box which had been filled/covered with plaster, with a ('live', but fortunately unbroken) cable travelling through it!

Only one? I had a houseful. Almost every original socket (and cooker point) in the kitchen had been plasterboarded or wet palstered over, with terminal strip protected by a piece of cardboard.

Some of the bedrooms had blanking plates where the underfloor heating themrostats had been.
 
Only one? I had a houseful. Almost every original socket (and cooker point) in the kitchen had been plasterboarded or wet plastered over, with terminal strip protected by a piece of cardboard.
Lots in total, but that was the only one which still contained a 'live' in-service cable (all visible evidence of the existence of which had gone, before decoration was removed)

Kind Regards, John
 
You need to be very careful not to "interpret" the regulations to mean what you want them to mean if that is different to what any normal sensible person would take them to mean using normal, sensible definitions of words, and that meaning is inconvenient to you.

In other words, in the context of cables connected to a point, accessory or switchgear, if "everybody knows" that connected means "physically connected", not "related to", then don't go for the twisting of "related to" because you find "physically connected" inconvenient.
All I can say is it's not just me. And if a guy in the IEE office agrees with me, that's good enough for me.
 
All I can say is it's not just me. And if a guy in the IEE office agrees with me, that's good enough for me.
What exactly is it that this guy believes? Does he believe that an accessory (even if only a blank plate) only creates a safe zone for a cable which 'passes through' the associated back box (in such a fashion that the back box could not be removed {at least, non-destructively} with the cable still in place, or what?

Kind Regards, John
 
Dunno. Didn't ask them, I happened to get through to Paul.
 
All I can say is it's not just me. And if a guy in the IEE office agrees with me, that's good enough for me.
So in other words you are going to go for a reading of a regulation which is plainly wrong because it suits you to believe that it says what you want, not what it actually says.

I'm afraid it doesn't matter how many people in an IET office say otherwise, nor who those people are, until the regulation is changed it says connected to a point, accessory or switchgear.
 
Some certainly do. However, one can see some sense in a requirement for a cable to be 'terminated' (including 'joined') within the accessory/whatever, since it would otherwise be possible, at least in some cases, to remove the visible item whilst leaving the buried cable in situ.
You could do that anyway, surely?
 
You could do that anyway, surely?
If a 'live' cable is 'terminated' within a back box (even if only into some sort of connector) [i.e. "connected", in the electrical wiring sense] then (unless one is crazy!), one cannot just remove whatever was attached to that back box (blank plate or accessory) and then plaster over the back box (since that would leave 'bare' live conductors embedded in the plaster).

On the other hand (as per example I described in post #19) if the intact cable merely 'passes through' the back box (without being broken/ cut/ 'terminated'), then one can (and, as I described, at least one person did!) remove the blank plate/accessory and plaster over the back box, rendering the cable now outside of safe zones (were that blank plate/accessory the only thing previously creating a safe zone for the cable).

Kind Regards, John
 

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