best way to chase cables?

[GeoffH88]

I'm about to start completely rewiring a cottage which will be fully plastered later.

Current installation is all surface mount.

Walls are all already (badly) plastered, and so I will be chasing in every damn cable, partly in plaster but some into brick.

In the limited number of times I have chased cables in the past I have used a grinder and hand chisel, but if I do that it will take forever.

What is the most time effective way of doing chasing in som many cable runs?

Guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Job_n_knock]

"Every damn cable" ? Dont be too harsh on cable, its our lifeblood

I used to get the labourers to do all the chasing but as you are doing it yourself, you already mentioned a grinder....TONS of dust but its the quickest way on all surfaces, Some walls are especially hard, such as concrete or hard bricks such as Staff. blues and these will wear your wheels out in no time. Then you can buy or hire a diamond chaser. In your case though, an angle grinder is probably best. But dont use it in the corners or you'll be chasing some of your ceiling out as well Basically, if you are going to do a house worth of chasing, you will get filthy and its not a 5 minute job.

By the way, have you done this before? Its not exactly in the realm of the DIYer

 

[GeoffH88]

I've wired new houses (including the one I sit in right now) and I have sorted out and added to the electrics of other houses we have renovated, so I have some experience.

This is the first total rewire though.

I guess I was hoping to hear of a marvellous chasing tool which would be simpler/quicker/easier to use than the grinder/bolster combo.

 

[Job_n_knock]

There is a device that exists. it is always moaning,turns up late and sometimes still drunk from the night before, seems to have a new tattoo every time he turns up for work, makes awful tea and skips college. Its called an Apprentice

 

[Spark123]

There are a number of tools on the market, you can get a wall chaser which chases two diamond cutting blades down the wall, then use an SDS drill with rotor stop and a channeling chisel to remove the channel. To knock out for the back boxes you can get SDS box sinkers. It all depends on how much you want to spend.

 

[Adam_151]

Hammer and chisel then you can save your gym membership cash

(not easy going through brick tho )

 

[The Jeep]

Sounds like the same territory I was in recently, and as Job says, it's hard and extremely messy work. However, I used a Metabo dual diamond blade wall chaser with dust extraction. This reduced the dust in the air to a level where you could actually see what you were doing! Basically, most wall chasers have a dust extraction outlet and this can be coupled to certain makes of wet&dry vac (mine's a Bosch Gas25). It does work, but it's still very dirty work.

This gear is expensive to buy (I spent over 500 quid) but if you plan all your chases in advance you can hire the kit and maybe get it all done in a couple of days. Too bad you're not in South London as I'm not using mine at the moment (still got 'orrible memories, though, from all that concrete...)

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I've wired new houses (including the one I sit in right now) and I have sorted out and added to the electrics of other houses we have renovated, so I have some experience.

Are you aware of the present legal issues?

In the past what testing did you carry out on the installation before putting it into service?