My living room AV install. Work in progress with pics.

[AdamW]

I think you've both summed it up nicely. If/when I next decorate I'll take the spur from upstairs and have it covered up again. If/when it came to selling the house then I can easily chop off the ends of the mains lead.

I promise to post a photo when the TV has been mounted BTW, then at least you can see how they look on a wall.

Ooooh, you shouldn't do that: it means someone might flip the breaker for the ring main serving your living room, assume it's all safe, and then drill through the cable being powered by your upstairs ring.

What you have done, whilst having a few oversights, is OK. With the pace of technology and the fact that at least 50% of the population doesn't approve of having a 42" screen in the living room (I'm yet to meet a woman who says "Big telly, cool!"), it is unlikely that the cables you have installed will be used by the next owners, certainly the owners after that.

 

[muffking]

As it stands I would give the buyer the option if they wanted me to cut the mains lead off at both ends, but that's only if I didn't change the setup in the mean time as with it being a 3 bedroom semi there's no need for me to sell in the foreseeable future.

 

[muffking]

Adam just pipped me to the post there with a reply.

someone might flip the breaker for the ring main serving your living room, assume it's all safe, and then drill through the cable being powered by your upstairs ring.

What you have done, whilst having a few oversights, is OK. With the pace of technology and the fact that at least 50% of the population doesn't approve of having a 42" screen in the living room (I'm yet to meet a woman who says "Big telly, cool!"), it is unlikely that the cables you have installed will be used by the next owners, certainly the owners after that.

funnily enough I think that there is only one ring? as it's a 60's-70's house which has been rewired at some point but one of the breakers takes out the downstairs & upstairs and sockets.

If I stay in the house for at least a decade then who knows what we will be watching, 80" High defenition projection screens maybe, after all, they can create the same brightness levels as a good LCD TV these days

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I think you've both summed it up nicely. If/when I next decorate I'll take the spur from upstairs and have it covered up again. If/when it came to selling the house then I can easily chop off the ends of the mains lead.

Just think of the hassle you could have saved if you'd decided that it wasn't OK to fiddle with electrics without bothering to find out how to do it properly....

Ooooh, you shouldn't do that: it means someone might flip the breaker for the ring main serving your living room, assume it's all safe, and then drill through the cable being powered by your upstairs ring.

If the cable is in a permitted zone, and they fail to test that they have isolated the circuit then they deserve everything they get.

 

[muffking]

If the cable is in a permitted zone, and they fail to test that they have isolated the circuit then they deserve everything they get.

I was thinking that but wouldn't dare say it (not publicly anyway)
Just goes to show that you should always chack that the circuit you are working on isn't live though, as I had a near encounter when changing some face plates a while ago. I pulled the breaker for the ring and removed 3 sockets, when I got to the 4th one the voice in my head told me to check that it wasn't still live. Turned out that it was on a different circuit for some weird reason. So I disconnected the supply before removing the socket

 

[AdamW]

I think this all demonstrates that whereas Part P will fail to do the job it was intended to do, if they had just publicised the fact you can buy the 16th Edition then a lot of potential wiring faux pas and potential dangers would be avoided.

Bodgers will always bodge, but keen DIYers (which I think includes Muff: he didn't research the regs first but he is obviously keen to do a good job) would be willing to spend a bit of money to get them. Not sure how much they cost, I suspect they are very pricey, but if you had them for £10 in every Wickes, Homebase and B&Q then they would sell a LOT of copies.

My first ever bit of wiring didn't meet regs. I was installing a spur from my ringmain. I researched on the net, read some bo**ox on a two-bit DIY-site about being allowed to spur off the main with two double sockets, so did that. I mentioned it to a spark I met at a party, he said "Nah, no problem with that!". It was only after I found DIYnot that I learned I had made a mistake. It is changed now, but to be honest, it was not a dangerous mistake.

What Muff has done is to produce something that works as it should, he has just neglected to make it idiot proof (and thus increased safety). Although...

If the cable is in a permitted zone, and they fail to test that they have isolated the circuit then they deserve everything they get.

A true idiot wouldn't bother to test either way!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I think this all demonstrates that whereas Part P will fail to do the job it was intended to do.

Time will tell - remember, the job it was intended to do was to put small amd OMB electricians out of business and concentrate the domestic installation market in the hands of a few large electrical contracting companies.....

 

[ninebob]

C'mon muffking, how long does it take to put a plasma Vieria on a wall? We want to see the photos so we can start putting the pennies away to do our own!

 

[muffking]

lol. It's possibly 2 weeks away from being mounted on the wall as we're still chasing after the new born and the terrible 2 year old at the mo. The plan is to sort out a TV for the dining room before I can get jiggy with the drill again

 

[Rob_Quads]

I am planning to perform an installation just like this one so can I just clarify how it 'should' be done to comply with all regs etc

1) The cables going to the chimney breast should have been taken up to the ceiling, across through the ceiling/floor boards and then down the front of the chimey i.e. not up/right/round/round....
2) The power cable for the screen should be in its own channel 50mm from the other cables

If I am putting in two sets of cables i.e. one for LCD one for Project I would have two channels for the two sets of video cables and then another channel which could carry both power leads? These will probably be fed by switched feeds

 

[muffking]

Finally got it up (ooerr!)

Excuse the poor quality pic, it started to get dark and you know what Digital Cameras are like in low light.

Do you think I'm being paranoid with the bracket BTW

 

[masona]

Do you think I'm being paranoid with the bracket BTW

How is the bracket fitted to the wall, I can't quite see it in the photo.

 

[muffking]

4x 10mm hex headed rawl plugs, 4x 6mm brick screws and 2x 11mm wall bolts for extra security.

 

[muffking]

You might see a bit better with this closeup

 

[masona]

Well they're not going anywhere!

I take it the rawlbolts is well into the brickwork because from your other photo there was a bit of making goods around that area.