Safe zones for electric cables

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Revision as of 20:27, 4 April 2011 by John Rumm (talk | contribs) (→‎The safe zones for cables concealed in walls are: tweak to remove "visible" from the description, and update image to show external corners as well.)
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Electric cables are usually run in prescribed safe zones. Knowing where these zones are allows you to correctly install cables and help eliminated damage to them when drilling walls at a later date


The safe zones for cables concealed in walls are

  • a horizontal zone within 150mm of the top of a wall
  • a vertical zone within 150mm of the angle formed by two walls - e.g. internal and external corners.
  • the horizontal and vertical zone adjacent to an electrical accessory (switch, socket, cable outlet etc)

Cablezones1.jpg

  • where an accessory on the reverse side of the wall can be easily determined, e.g. through a door or archway, and the wall or partition depth is 100mm or less, then the horizontal and vertical zones to that accessory apply to both rooms:

Cablezones2.jpg


Where cables are not in installed in a safe zone then they need to be installed according to the rules explained here.

See Also