Yes, they do chop unexpected (and expected cables that are in the right place). Safety boots don’t save you from being killed by electricity.
I've decided to have the entire house rewired - does that mean skimming would be needed?
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Indeed, they don't necessarily - and, anyway, I doubt that, in situations where 'safety boots' would achieve anything, I suspect that most ordinary footware would be more-or-less as good.
However, whilst tradesmen and DIYers do sometimes chop through such cables, I wonder how often it has resulted in significant injury, let alone death - and, whatever the answer to that, one imagines that RCDs have been reducing it even further (from a starting poiint which I suspect was never a lot above 'zero'!).
In all the decades I've been making holes in walls, I've only once hit an 'unexpected cable' - and that was in a wall that I had no reason to believe contained any cables at all. I have, however, on at least two occasions hit (and penetrated) water pipes - plumbers don't seem to pay even 'lip service' to any notion comparable with the 'safe (aka dangerous!) zones' for electrical cables.
Kind Regards, John
DIYnot Local
Staff member
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