Cables between brick cavity???

[Jono_UK]

I am in the planning stage of a kitchen extension. The walls will be brick inside and out with a cavity wall including insulation.

I want sockets above the work surface of the kitchen but I can't chase or plaster over the cable run to the back box as I want the brick look.

My question is, say I have the cable running under the units (Between the legs of the units) and out of the wall up behind the unit and wall within the cavity and back out into the rear of the socket box (of if there are no units on the floor come down from the ceiling within the cavity) - how should I duct it and is this common practice?

 

[plugwash]

UPVC conduit will tollerate cavity wall insulation just make sure you fix it so it doesn't bridge the cavity.

you could just run horizontally from socket-socket along a mortar joint and then snake down the mortar joints to the floor but you'd need to make sure the cable was thin enough (you'd probablly get away with it for sockets but not for anything much bigger).

 

[JohnD]

You might chase down the finished wall, so that that you chase alternately the vertical mortar joint between two bricks, and the mid-point of the intermediate joint. This will make it easier to run cables or oval conduit, and when repointed may not look too obtrusive.

 

[baldelectrician]

my personal prefernce would be 150-300mm of flexable conduit from back box to below worktop, all looks good and easy to replace cables.

 

[Adam_151]

If thats the look you are going for, then how about surface mounted metal sockets wired in horizontal surface clipped pyro ?

I'm no interior designer, but I can see it going quite well (though if it was me, I wouldn't have exposed brick in the kitchen anyway, it'll lead to it being gloomy)

 

[Pensdown]

If it's a new build you could use oval conduit. Your brickie will soon knock the backs out of the bricks so the conduits in the wall and not the cavity.

 

[JohnD]

... and of course, for a kitchen, where you have dozens of sockets and FCUs just above the worktop, the ideal method is to run the cable horizontally between them, minimal chasing and economical on materials - that could easily be hidden in a fat mortar joint, pref in oval conduit, with no dropping down or rising up except at the ends of the room.

 

[SparkyMarky]

If you do this then I'd suggest that you make sure the cables are run in continuous conduit for future re-wiring. The wiring in my entire house was run loose in the cavity at the time the place was built (before my time I should add!) and it makes it near impossible to work on. There is no way to access the cables to carry out modifications/editions etc. at a later date, and certainly no way to replace the cables altogether. This is even more of a problem for me as the cavity was filled with polystyrene insulation after it was built, and the PVC cables are now in a pretty poor state. I need to do a complete re-wire but can't do it without destroying most of my house

 

[Jono_UK]

Thanks for all your replies. I will look into alternatives you suggest.

Ta Jono,