I have completely rewired my house (The house had been stripped to the
bare walls and joists). The only thing left to do is put in a new
Consumer Unit and wire all the circuits to it. All the cables come
into a cupboard under the staircase through the ceiling.

I am installing a surface mount MK sentry Consumer Unit. My question
is how should I route all these cables into the Consumer Unit? Do they
all have to be put into trunking and then fed into the top of the CU?
Or is it better to chase channels and bury the cables and feed them
into the CU from the back? There's a hell of a lot of cables there.

Any advice appreciated.

"Tipu Sattar" wrote in message
om...
I have completely rewired my house (The house had been stripped to the
bare walls and joists). The only thing left to do is put in a new
Consumer Unit and wire all the circuits to it. All the cables come
into a cupboard under the staircase through the ceiling.

I am installing a surface mount MK sentry Consumer Unit. My question
is how should I route all these cables into the Consumer Unit? Do they
all have to be put into trunking and then fed into the top of the CU?
Or is it better to chase channels and bury the cables and feed them
into the CU from the back? There's a hell of a lot of cables there.

Ugly wiring is not a hanging offence

most peeps clip them to the wall so that
high current circuits go nearest the nearest the
switch and lighting furthest away.

DO NOT cut wires to exact length - leave
some slack somewhere

Chris Oates none wrote:

"Tipu Sattar" wrote in message
om...
I have completely rewired my house (The house had been stripped to the
bare walls and joists). The only thing left to do is put in a new
Consumer Unit and wire all the circuits to it. All the cables come
into a cupboard under the staircase through the ceiling.

I am installing a surface mount MK sentry Consumer Unit. My question
is how should I route all these cables into the Consumer Unit? Do they
all have to be put into trunking and then fed into the top of the CU?
Or is it better to chase channels and bury the cables and feed them
into the CU from the back? There's a hell of a lot of cables there.

Ugly wiring is not a hanging offence

Yes, quite OK to fix to surface as long as there's no significant
risk of damage. If there's brooms and things hanging in the cupboard
close to the wiring it might be argued that they should be in
trunking.

When I did my mother-in-law's I used some large (38mm x 25mm)
mini-trunking and found it fairly easy to make a reasonably neat job.


most peeps clip them to the wall so that
high current circuits go nearest the nearest the
switch and lighting furthest away.

DO NOT cut wires to exact length - leave
some slack somewhere

All good advice.

--
Chris Green )

wrote:

Ugly wiring is not a hanging offence

Yes, quite OK to fix to surface as long as there's no significant
risk of damage. If there's brooms and things hanging in the cupboard
close to the wiring it might be argued that they should be in
trunking.

The *wiring* goes in the trunking of course! :-)

--
Chris Green )

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 00:16:09 -0000, Chris Oates wrote:

Ugly wiring is not a hanging offence

But might make the inspector look a bit harder at the installation.

most peeps clip them to the wall so that high current circuits go
nearest the nearest the switch and lighting furthest away.

The instructions for the CU should say that anyway. But trying to
arrange the cables so they layout like that down the wall is probably
a good idea. Personally I'd go for good sized truncking with lots of
space around each cable or make the board that CU is attched to go
right up to the ceiling an neatly clip the cables to that. What you
don't want to do is squeeze them all together in a tight bundle, the
ones in the middle might(*) get too hot...

(*) small might depends entirely on the loads, but the inspector might
take a dim view of a tight bundle.

DO NOT cut wires to exact length - leave some slack somewhere

A good foot or so tucked up into the void and again the use of a duct
or clipped to a board means things are easy to move about compared to
being chased into the wall with bends etc. If you want to cover the
clipped cables a couple of 1" battens and a sheet of light
ply/hardboard will do, probably good from the physical protection POV
anyway.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

wrote in message
...
wrote:

Ugly wiring is not a hanging offence

The *wiring* goes in the trunking of course! :-)

Not the mother in law?

Thats not what my IEE onsite guide says... ;-)

Do they all have to be put into trunking and then fed into the
top of the CU? Or is it better to chase channels and bury the
cables and feed them into the CU from the back?

Whatever floats your boat. It is purely cosmetic, unless there is any chance
of the cables getting snagged. If anything, surface mount cables are easier
when alterations are made.

Christian.

A good foot or so tucked up into the void and again the use of a duct or
clipped to a board means things are easy to move about compared to being
chased into the wall with bends etc. If you want to cover the clipped
cables a couple of 1" battens and a sheet of light ply/hardboard will do,
probably good from the physical protection POV anyway.

Cable tray works well.You can use cable ties to anchor cables to the tray.

Dave

--
And you were born knowing all about ms windows....??

"Christian McArdle" wrote in message .net...
Do they all have to be put into trunking and then fed into the
top of the CU? Or is it better to chase channels and bury the
cables and feed them into the CU from the back?

Whatever floats your boat. It is purely cosmetic, unless there is any chance
of the cables getting snagged. If anything, surface mount cables are easier
when alterations are made.

Christian.

Fantastic advice chaps. I've decided to surface mount them. Use 1"
battens and a piece of ply to cover it. Of course, I'll leave plenty
of slack. Dont really fancy the trunking method as it will involved
quite a few of them as theres a fair few cricuits and dont want to
bundle them into big trunking as things like heat generation etc
concern me.

btw the cupboard is too small for any other use apart from housing
gas/ elec meter and CU. So those worried about putting stuff like
brooms or in laws in trunking should be rest assured....

(Tipu Sattar) wrote in message . com...
Dont really fancy the trunking method as it will involved
quite a few of them as theres a fair few cricuits and dont want to
bundle them into big trunking as things like heat generation etc
concern me.

You can get some pretty big trunking - I've got some 75mmx75mm, and
often use 50x50 for consumer unit cabling. I'm sure bigger sizes are
available. It can look very neat if you cut it carfeully with a mitre
saw.

Using trunking does of course change the "installation method" and
reduces the current carrying capacity of the cables!

John