Cable behind skirting board

[Bowness72]

Does anyone know of a clever way of installing a cable behind a skirting board for a plug socket without removing or damaging the skirting board ?

The reason is that my sockets are face fixed to original 350mm high skirting boards with the wires comig up from the floor in trunking. The house may be getting rewired at some point in the future but I really don't want to have to pull the skirting board off the wall to achieve socket recessed into the wall.

I know you can buy slightly slimmer sockets these days but still wouldn't look as good in my opinion.

 

[IJWS15]

My parents used to live in a big Victorian semi. Ground floor skirtings were about 15" high and built up. Sockets (not surface ones) were in the skirting and the cables run in the hollow (1" x 12") between the skirting and the plaster.

What I have done in the past (with 5" skirting) is to use a long masonry bit to drill almost vertically down through the plaster creating a chase behind the skirting - difficult with yours unless it is hollow.

 

[Bowness72]

I suppose I could drill a small pilot hole somewhere out of the way to find out. I do know that one of the smaller upstairs skirtings has a void behind it though. I have also been advised on this website that its not a particularly good idea to recess a socket into a skirting board.

 

[jj4091]

You may be able to do it the way ijws15 suggests if you bought a 1 metre long drill bit( presuming you have an sds drill) personally I would probably use a slate river,but the problem is going to be if you have floorboards going up to the wall at the bottom of the skirting.

 

[IJWS15]

Generally not a good idea, in small skirtings they get belted by the hoover, feet etc. and the casing can get broken (dangerous). But with a skirting of your size they can be higher and out of the way.

The suggestion in the earleir post would produce a chase into the expected void behind the skirting, if you have a suspended floor you could then open a hole into the void from below allowing a cable to be threaed through for sockets in the wall above the skirting.

 

[Bowness72]

Generally not a good idea, in small skirtings they get belted by the hoover, feet etc. and the casing can get broken (dangerous).

If I were to recess the sockets into the skirting board, surely that would be better than the existing face fixed ones which must stand more chance of getting knocked. Is that the only reason to avoid recessing sockets into timber skirtings or is there a risk of fire ?

 

[JohnD]

When it was common to have sockets mounted near the floor, it was a very frequent job to replace sockets and plugs that had been cracked or broken.

Apart from the risk of being clouted by hoovers, furniture, and clumsy people with heavy boots (remember that even if you sink the socket, the plug will be sticking out) the other reason is that tired or old people with creaky knees and bad backs find it more difficult to reach a socket that's down near the floor.

They (and disabled people) generally find it easier to reach sockets that are at least 450mm above the floor, and this is the current standard used in new build and most refurbishments, for this reason. People are getting used to this standard, and find that low sockets look very odd and old-fashioned.

 

[RF Lighting]

One of the few times we didn't insist on the socket being raised above the skirting board.