A mate is having is house rewired and sent a photo of this cable drop from high level to feed sockets behind a TV I piped up and said the cables needs capping, I never left cables exposed for replastering without fitting a capping over cables like that, but then I've been off the tools for 30 years. Ive since done some digging and the consensus is that using clips like this to secure the cables is deemed to be mechanically sound, so no need to cap the cables. thinking pragmatically, covering cables in a thin plastic capping doesnt offer much in the way of mechanical protection anyway and now its reference to compliance via RCD protection (as if thats a modern concept?!), lack of acidity in modern plasters and renders, even that the risk of cable nicks from sharp edges of plasterers trowels is no longer deemed applicable?
Never needed to cap but was normally done as it’s an easy way of fixing and it provides some protection from the plasterer trowel so on a small fill job like that I wouldn’t bother.
But capping over flat T&E cables is no deeper than using cable clips - the chase depth in the photo looks deep enough to use capping or clips, but I can see the benefit of using clips here as it only needs a narrow chase, rather than a bolster width that often breaks the plaster over a much further area.
If no mechanical protection is used and the cables are less than 50mm from the surface, which is normally the case, a 30mA RCD provides adequate protection. That’s in the Regs Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Its the bowler hat that was the work gear for the switch man at Deptford power station back in the 1960s.. Open the 6 KV knife switch and flick the hat through the arc to break it.. That hat made him important.
True. The '60s walls in our flat had about 4 microns of plaster over the capping. If you sneezed, it would fall off...
