Cables too short, help!?

[sh4d0w]

Hi Guys,

I have a bit of a situation... We have just decorated our living room ready for the new carpet on Wed and new sofa on Thurs... I have bought all new screw-less black nickle fittings to run through from the rest of the house, I have changed them all in the extension just fine but i came to fit my first one in the living room last night, this would be the original cabling and back boxes etc. I took the face-plate off the single socket to find it to have a spur off of it so i have 3 lots of twin and earth. Ok, so usually wouldn't be an issue... only i have NO play in any of the cores, earth i do! The terminals on the old sockets were the opposite way around to the new sockets leaving me with no way of fitting it, it took me the best part of an hour just to re-fit the old face as i had so little cable free.

I have been racking my brain on how i can make it work. The ring main (pair of cables) enter and exit at the bottom of the back box and the spur leaves via the top, i thought about moving the socket down the wall so to free some cable, this would then leave the spur short and more patching up etc (plus it would be less than 450mm)
Then thought about adding a new cable from the the side of the wall (behind a kitchen cupboard) only this would mean i would have to join the cables in the current socket and add a blanking plate meaning i would have to attack the fresh wall to sink a new back box etc.
SO... what about joining the cables to extend them... well using a Chocbloc is not usually the favored method it would have worked a treat for my situation, only it would leave me NO room for the face plate to sit in. So then what about crimping... i dont have a decent ratchet crimping tool and dont fancy spending £30 on one for this task (if i have to, i will do), I am pretty sure that i will have the same issue once all are crimped... no room in the backbox for the socket. Unless i crimp the 3 cables in one crimp...

I then come to the idea of soldering and heatshrinking a few inches of 1.5mm cable on.

What would you do? / recommend ?

 

[sh4d0w]

PS, I have only taken one socket off, i have another 2 singles, i have done a double, a 3way light switch and a dimmer. If they are all the same i think i might just scrap the new sockets for now.

PPS, i was not able to edit.

Martin

 

[Chri5]

Although messy there is no reason why you can terminate all existing cables (the ones that are too short) on terminal blocks and then wire LNE from the terminal blocks to the socket.

It's far from perfect in as much as it gives another termination, and less terminations is best, but if you have room to position a terminal box in the back box (and room for the socket to sit correctly, and room for the cables) you could do that.

 

[sh4d0w]

What i might be able to do is drill the back of the box out and try and make room behind the back box for the blocks.

 

[sparkwright]

What i might be able to do is drill the back of the box out and try and make room behind the back box for the blocks.

Naughty.

All the wiring and connections should be within the box.

Extending the wires with crimps (blue for 2.5 mm2 cores, red for 1.5 mm2 bare earth) may be the solution. They will save some space. Each wire must be joined individually.

If you haven't used crimps before, practice on somme scrap cable first.

Use only a proper crimping tool.

Someone will be along later the post the regular stock photographs...