Hi all, another extremely minor and probably laughable electrics question from me...
This plug socket has always been loose since I bought my place 2 years ago, it basically hung out of the wall by about 1cm on one side if you put a plug in there and pulled it back out.
The wall is a dry wall, and the back box for this plug (I think it's called a pattress) is metal.
There is an earth wire screwed onto the pattress.
On taking it apart I could see this pattress wasn't actually attached to the wall in any way, just sat in there loose! I suppose it can't screw into the drywall or the screws would be sticking out in the room behind it lol.
In the photo attached, the blue square was a weird looking metal clip, which I assume if there was 4 of them would have done the job of holding it in place.
The 3 green lines are the cables coming into the pattress.
Now my bodge is the 3 red lines, they are black drywall screws.
So basically they are now jammed behind the plasterboard so when you tighten the socket onto the pattress they get pinched and it's now solid on the wall.
The pattress already had holes around the sides by the way, I didn't have to drill or cut anything.
But I'm worried the house might burn down because of this haha!
Mainly thinking that they are metal screws touching a metal box which has electrics inside.
Can someone please put my mind at rest?
I guess the proper solution would have been to buy a plastic pattress box designed for drywalls.
This plug socket has always been loose since I bought my place 2 years ago, it basically hung out of the wall by about 1cm on one side if you put a plug in there and pulled it back out.
The wall is a dry wall, and the back box for this plug (I think it's called a pattress) is metal.
There is an earth wire screwed onto the pattress.
On taking it apart I could see this pattress wasn't actually attached to the wall in any way, just sat in there loose! I suppose it can't screw into the drywall or the screws would be sticking out in the room behind it lol.
In the photo attached, the blue square was a weird looking metal clip, which I assume if there was 4 of them would have done the job of holding it in place.
The 3 green lines are the cables coming into the pattress.
Now my bodge is the 3 red lines, they are black drywall screws.
So basically they are now jammed behind the plasterboard so when you tighten the socket onto the pattress they get pinched and it's now solid on the wall.
The pattress already had holes around the sides by the way, I didn't have to drill or cut anything.
But I'm worried the house might burn down because of this haha!
Mainly thinking that they are metal screws touching a metal box which has electrics inside.
Can someone please put my mind at rest?
I guess the proper solution would have been to buy a plastic pattress box designed for drywalls.
