Electrical trunking - any ideas please?

[littlebadger]

Hi-

Old Victorian house, first-time buyer, new forum member and first post! Looking for a little help and some ideas.

We have just taken on a project in a Victorian Terrace and we have an electrician in to completely rewire the house.

We wanted as many wires, sockets and switches as possible chased into the walls for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the non-load bearing walls upstairs in the bedrooms are made out of bits of half-brick, bits of wood and held together with woodchip wallpaper and spit.

The electrician just about managed to chase in the sockets but the walls crumbled in protest now the woodchip has been stripped, even knocking a few bricks out and taking huge chunks of plaster off. We don't think the walls can cope with wires to the light switches, and the switches themselves, being chased-in.

The only alternative it seems is to run awful plastic trunking down from the ceiling to the switches. The current switches are fed by bare cables running behind the door frames which need to be removed.

Has anyone here encountered this problem, and if so, does anyone have ideas how we could disguise the trunking? Or know of any products that don't look really tacky or ugly? The electrician is just recommending bog standard PVC trunks. Hope someone can help! Cheers.

 

[dingbat]

The electrician is just recommending bog standard PVC trunks.

Like this ?

You can get decorative trunking. Maybe one of these will do?

 

[ivixor]

Since they will need plastering anyway, why not dot & dab some new plasterboard to the walls, with the cables under that?

 

[sparkwright]

You should't have to have trunking, and dot and dab may cause a problem with existing skirting boards, picture rails and architraves.

Get a build who can advise and put right any damage. Any flush boxes you cannot get a fixing on can be cemented in, or a soft thermalite block could be cemented in the hole.

Any cable drops should only require the plaster removed. Use capping rather than oval as you will get a better covering of plaster, if the plaster is very thin.

If you do need to cut into the brickwork, use a chaser/grinder that won't disturb the brickwork too much.

In a property of this age you will have to expect the old plaster to drop off in big chunks. You sometimes find there is hardly anything holding the bricks together; quite normal unfortunately.

Don't settle for surface trunking, and if in doubt get a decent builder to help.

 

[dingbat]

Don't settle for surface trunking, and if in doubt get a decent builder to help.

I suspect the OP is on a budget. A decent builder (lots of luck with that) will probably want to spend a big part of that budget rebuilding the unstable walls.

But, as always, get several opinions/prices before you commit to any spend.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If the walls are non-load bearing then it's a DIY job to replace them with studwork & plasterboard. A bit of care with fixing, taping and filling the latter will mean no plastering is required if the walls are to be papered.

 

[littlebadger]

You should't have to have trunking, and dot and dab may cause a problem with existing skirting boards, picture rails and architraves.

Thanks to all who've taken the time to reply.

I hate the idea of using trunking too, but the 1/2 bricks used in these walls were manufactured with 12 holes in them, and were laid in courses with the holes facing out! They were rendered with a very thin coat of black mortar and there is some evidence of a very thin, more modern, plaster skim (possibly in the early 80's).

The plaster is so thin the chase would have to go into the bricks, and because they were laid with holes-out, they literally fall apart as soon as the chaser/ grinder starts biting into them. When the electrician started chasing for one of the sockets, three bricks disintegrated and another popped out of the wall the other side, which we had to replace with others we took out from elsewhere in the house. More chases would kill the wall. It really is a wonder how they stood up for 100+ years!

I really can't think of a solution other than to completely rebuild the wall, which for financial and time problems is not an option. The rooms are quite small anyway and plasterboard over would seriously shrink them.

This leaves us with trunking *shudder* but I'm racking my brains to find some way of disguising it. I'd quite like the fittings to be 'bakelite'' dolly switches over an oak pattress, so it may be an option to get some some thin lengths of quality timber and routing a channel behind to enclose the cables. Not ideal, but perhaps the least ugliest option!

thanks again

 

[bernardgreen]

I'd quite like the fittings to be 'bakelite'' dolly switches over an oak pattress, so it may be an option to get some some thin lengths of quality timber and routing a channel behind to enclose the cables. Not ideal, but perhaps the least ugliest option!

The wooden channels for wires to switches would be quite retro. I know a hous that has that to fit in with the "old world" appearance. That caldding round a modern mini trunk might be the solution. It might add strength to the wall.

Leave a bit of slack cable so that when you can replace the wall with a stud wall there is enough cable.

Sadly once disturbed those walls can literally fall apart. Also they are not always child proof.

 

[OwainDIYer]

Using ceiling (pull cord) switches may be an option.

If the electrician leave enough spare cable up there then it can be dropped down to wall switches at a later date if desired.

Wireless switches might be another option.

 

[littlebadger]

Using ceiling (pull cord) switches may be an option.

If the electrician leave enough spare cable up there then it can be dropped down to wall switches at a later date if desired.

Wireless switches might be another option.

Hadn't considered wireless switches before, so thanks for that. I'd quickly considered and dismissed the pull-cord option as my first thoughts were that every bedroom would feel like a bathroom! However, I might have been a bit hasty.

Thanks to all for making me think outside the box! At least we have options other than trunking!

 

[flameport]

I'd quite like the fittings to be 'bakelite'' dolly switches over an oak pattress,

Those things cost a fortune, so one option to cut down on cost will be to have standard white plastic switches for now, and use the money you were going to spend on the fancy switches to have to walls boarded and plastered.

You can easily change the switches later on.

 

[Chri5]

Why not remove the walls and start again with stud work and plaster boards? While your at it you could insulate with celotex

If the walls really are that bad they need to come down, there's no reason why the skirting couldn't be reused (maybe with a chemi dip between times), and you might save any cornice, depending on how it was held together in the 1st place.

If you really must be surface, maybe metal conduit drops and with care back to backs- so one drop covers 2 x boxes, say a hallway and bedroom, or even bedroom back to backs depending on door's / access points.

Although not used much, architrave switches set in door architraves (and thus half the drop route) would save on some destruction and create a safe route vertical of the switch that would be classed as acceptable.

Proximity sensor in the ceiling might help for halls and wc / bathroom.

 

[littlebadger]

Why not remove the walls and start again with stud work and plaster boards? While your at it you could insulate with celotex

If the walls really are that bad they need to come down

We were given the switches so we may as well use them- they look great. The walls are straight and holding themselves up fine just so long as you don't mess with them. If we had the money and the time, I would take them down and put new stud partitions in with insulation, but we don't unfortunately. We shall have to make do and mend, including some skimming of the walls, but this would be no where near thick enough to allow for the chasing-in of the cables.

I like the idea of back-to-backs but the only way of achieving this would be to mount them in the very place the doors would open into. We could hang the doors on the other side of the frame, but then we'd just have them opening into the actual room space as opposed to against the dividing wall. Good thinking though and thanks.

 

[sparkwright]

Would it help if the switch cable ran down the corner of the adjacent wall, and the cable then running horizontally to the switch position? Perhaps the adjacent wall is made of different bricks.

Cable could run in mortar joint horizontally. Care MUST be taken not to chase very deep as this would cause problems to the wall structure. Cable safe zones would have to be observed, to reduce the chances of someone drilling through a cable.

How are the existing switch cables put in?

Is the plaster any thicker on the other side of the walls? Again, cable zones must be observed.

 

[sparkwright]

Why not remove the walls and start again with stud work and plaster boards? While your at it you could insulate with celotex

If the walls really are that bad they need to come down

I like the idea of back-to-backs but the only way of achieving this would be to mount them in the very place the doors would open into. We could hang the doors on the other side of the frame, but then we'd just have them opening into the actual room space as opposed to against the dividing wall. Good thinking though and thanks.

In old houses, it was usual for the doors to open into the actual room space, as opposed to against the wall. See if the doors have been re-hung, you may see where the hinges were. If they have been altered there may be an old cable route on the 'dividing wall'.