Hidden Electrics

[hamd01]

Hi guys,
Im after some advice after much googling and unable to find a solution.

Im working on a barn conversion to games room and bedroom, currently stud walling, and starting to think about the electrics.

The room is going to be gadget heavy... things like hidden under counter charging pads, electric blinds, wall mounted tablets for home automation control, and lots of led string lighting.

What Id like to do is ensure all the wires and cables are hidden. Which in principal sounds easy given that it isnt plasterboarded yet.... but as most of these things are either USB powered or mains socket powered, how would you guys go about powering them in a hidden way. I dont really want to run cabled to them behind the plasterboard, and then comes out to a visible wall socket....as it would look a bit naff.

I was thinking I could run everything to a central point, and have a hidden access pannel, behind which is a pannel of sockets/usb ports, but I dont know if it would be best practice to run these devices what could be 10m+... especially the usb ones.

Are there any tricks of the trade to achieve a wire free look?

 

[ericmark]

Much depends on supply type, and if close to limits, of well within limits, often with things like barn conversions we are more interested in the loop impedance which is used to work out the volt drop and prospective short circuit current and looking for ways to keep them within limits.

Pictures are good, and also the readings from the consumer unit (CU).

Using mineral insulated cables can often help, but these are not really for DIY.

 

[hamd01]

Much depends on supply type, and if close to limits, of well within limits, often with things like barn conversions we are more interested in the loop impedance which is used to work out the volt drop and prospective short circuit current and looking for ways to keep them within limits.

Pictures are good, and also the readings from the consumer unit (CU).

Using mineral insulated cables can often help, but these are not really for DIY.

Ill be honest....90% of what you said is over my head. The electrician installed the new consumer unit and we have around 20 sockets dotted around the two rooms, which at this point are dead easy to reposition.... hence why thinking about positions before boarding.

 

[FrodoOne]

The room is going to be gadget heavy... things like hidden under counter charging pads, electric blinds, wall mounted tablets for home automation control, and lots of led string lighting.

What Id like to do is ensure all the wires and cables are hidden. Which in principal sounds easy given that it isnt plasterboarded yet.... but as most of these things are either USB powered or mains socket powered, how would you guys go about powering them in a hidden way. I dont really want to run cabled to them behind the plasterboard, and then comes out to a visible wall socket....as it would look a bit naff.

I was thinking I could run everything to a central point, and have a hidden access pannel, behind which is a pannel of sockets/usb ports, but I dont know if it would be best practice to run these devices what could be 10m+... especially the usb ones.

Are there any tricks of the trade to achieve a wire free look?

You wrote
"I dont really want to run cabled to them behind the plasterboard, and then comes out to a visible wall socket....as it would look a bit naff."

How do you envision interconnecting 230 V "in wall wiring" with any "device" using flexible cables (which are not suitable for use within walls) without the use of a Socket and Plug or a fused "Connection Unit"?

If the "Electric Blind" motors are 230 V, they could be wired "directly",
but
via a fused "connection unit".
If Extra Low Voltage (ELV), they would still require a "wall plate/connector".

ELV USB cables could be run to a central point
but
they would still need some type of wall plate/connector, to pass through the surface of a wall.

LED "string" lighting also will require a wall plate/connector, to pass through the surface of a wall.

Something which may be of interest to you - for the LED lighting and other ELV connections - are magnetic "Pogo Pin Connectors",
If you wire them correctly, these devices connect themselves magnetically, the correct way around - because of the polarity of the magnets.

See

1 5 20 Pcs 2A DC Magnetic Pogo Pin Connector 2Pin 3 4 5 6 7 8 9P Pogopin Male Female spacing 2.5mm Spring Loaded DC Power Socket - AliExpress 13

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

 

[ericmark]

There are electrical safe zones,

so if cables already installed it is too late to change.

 

[ebee]

then comes out to a visible wall socket....as it would look a bit naff.

Why is it that some people have an aversion to sockets and switches etc? In a modern world sockets and switches do not look out of place and some of them can be decorative too. The prime consideration should be to mount them in the best place to utilise them, then second to that we look at aesthetics. OK we might "tweek" things slightly for an acceptable finished result but to hide them and expect to use all sorts of things needing some power is not in my opinion rational thinking.

I once had a customer who insisted she wanted 4 twin sockets in each room but very close to the corners because she "Did not want the sockets on view". I pointed out that a lot of the things she had plugged in were near the centre of walls so she would require long flexes trailing distances to be plugged in but she thought that was acceptable, to me it looked a right mess rather than have the sockets adjacent to the intended space of use.
Another customer was slightly ruffled because she wanted all of the rockers on switches to be the same way up irrespective of whether to particular lights were on or off, I explained that all of the one way switches were the same orientation for on and vice versa but even then the two way/three way switching would muck that up anyway but she just could not understand it. I`m talking bog standard switches etc well before the days of high tech radio switches etc.

 

[Taylortwocities]

May I add to your logistical challenges?

When planning how to do this, remember that all points where there are joints or junctions, using screwed terminals, must remain accessible. If a junction is not accessible then you must use what is termed a "maintenance free" junction, such as THESE and THESE. Other brands are available!

All devices must also be accessible. They will, and do fail. I've had several occasions to bang holes in a customer's ceiling because some numpty has screwed a lighting transformer to a joist, and then put up the plasterboard ceiling!

 

[ebee]

Big yes to that one Taylor.
In fact I had one job which was a complete rewire except for kitchen lighting which was "New" (New meant about only 25 years old I later found out. LOL) , anyway small of outbuilding of a kitchen on a terraced house with tiled roof forming a apex. Underdrawn ceiling plasterboard, no loft hatch in place.
Customer tells me that to make the connection to the lighting (12V downlights) I will need to remove slates to access via the roof just like the plasterer did to change the transformer.
No way!
Anyway I engaged a joiner to put a loft hatch in place.
Blimey.
He called me over to take a peek ( well I was only in the next room).
"You will not believe this!" he exclaimed.
He had removed some plasterboard sufficient to put a light inside and take a peek.
This is where it gets "Good"
Say 5.5m x 2.5m kitchen with 3 x 2 battens at ceiling height.
The 3 x 2 was laid not across the short span but across the long span.
The 3 x 2 was laid not as 3 vertical and 2 horizontal but as 2 vertical and 3 horizontal.
The slates had obviously bee reroofed at some point in its life as there was a sheet of membrane under the slates, these houses were not originally built with anything under the slates.
Membrane had a massive tear in it where the chappy had removed slates then gained access to the transformer.
It was not a one to one transformer of the type you could pull thru the spotlight hole from underside of the ceiling, nope it was a rather large transformer to run 3 or 4 spots and it was screwed down to the timbers.
Off course there was quite a bit of pipework up there too, boarded in and inaccessible unless entering from the roof.
No insulation;

On a completely different job at another time I saw a "Flat Roof". Two up two down terraced house with a later addition of an outbuilt kitchen.
3 x 2 battens (laid correctly) and topped with "feathering" , i.e. the 3 x 2 battens were laid level then the tapered wood "Feathers" laid on top to give the finished roof a slight slope to aid taking rainwater away from the house end and to the gutters.
Guess what? The Feathers were all laid thin end to the house meaning that all rain would run to the joint onto main building .
"Ohh, we do get a lot of water coming in thru the kitchen ceiling right where it joins the house if it rains heavy!" the customer replied.
Apparently it was like that when they moved in just a few years earlier.

 

[Taylortwocities]

On a completely different job at another time I saw a "Flat Roof".

That reminds me, I was called to look at a fan that wasnt working.
The bathroom was under a flat roof area and the numpty bathroom fitters had installed an "in line" fan in between the ceiling joists!.
Nice job to access it with my plasterboard access tool (hammer)! Plus much more work to do it properly followed by a ceiling replaster.

 

[ebee]

Taylor - I reckon that between us and a few of the others on here we could write a large book of all the ridiculous things we have spotted (or heard folk say) , we could probably out manoeuvre "Ripley`s believe it or not" and "Billy`s Weekly Liar" LOL

 

[ebee]

my plasterboard access tool (hammer)!

Nice one.

Also the "Universal Door Keys" (Lump Hammer/Sledge Hammer/Crowbar). we are on the same wavelength meethinks

 

[hamd01]

You wrote
"I dont really want to run cabled to them behind the plasterboard, and then comes out to a visible wall socket....as it would look a bit naff."

How do you envision interconnecting 230 V "in wall wiring" with any "device" using flexible cables (which are not suitable for use within walls) without the use of a Socket and Plug or a fused "Connection Unit"?

If the "Electric Blind" motors are 230 V, they could be wired "directly",
but
via a fused "connection unit".
If Extra Low Voltage (ELV), they would still require a "wall plate/connector".

ELV USB cables could be run to a central point
but
they would still need some type of wall plate/connector, to pass through the surface of a wall.

LED "string" lighting also will require a wall plate/connector, to pass through the surface of a wall.

Something which may be of interest to you - for the LED lighting and other ELV connections - are magnetic "Pogo Pin Connectors",
If you wire them correctly, these devices connect themselves magnetically, the correct way around - because of the polarity of the magnets.

See

1 5 20 Pcs 2A DC Magnetic Pogo Pin Connector 2Pin 3 4 5 6 7 8 9P Pogopin Male Female spacing 2.5mm Spring Loaded DC Power Socket - AliExpress 13

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

Thank for. so using the example of a wall mounted ipad....which is powered from a usb cable. Would it be acceptable to run the usb cable hidden behind the wall, to a wall mounted mains socket?

 

[hamd01]

Why is it that some people have an aversion to sockets and switches etc? In a modern world sockets and switches do not look out of place and some of them can be decorative too. The prime consideration should be to mount them in the best place to utilise them, then second to that we look at aesthetics. OK we might "tweek" things slightly for an acceptable finished result but to hide them and expect to use all sorts of things needing some power is not in my opinion rational thinking.

I once had a customer who insisted she wanted 4 twin sockets in each room but very close to the corners because she "Did not want the sockets on view". I pointed out that a lot of the things she had plugged in were near the centre of walls so she would require long flexes trailing distances to be plugged in but she thought that was acceptable, to me it looked a right mess rather than have the sockets adjacent to the intended space of use.
Another customer was slightly ruffled because she wanted all of the rockers on switches to be the same way up irrespective of whether to particular lights were on or off, I explained that all of the one way switches were the same orientation for on and vice versa but even then the two way/three way switching would muck that up anyway but she just could not understand it. I`m talking bog standard switches etc well before the days of high tech radio switches etc.

Its not really the sockets Im trying to hide so much as the cables. Be daft to have a room at the stud walling stage and not think about ways to position the sockets and the cables if there are options out there to make it astehtically better.

 

[hamd01]

May I add to your logistical challenges?

When planning how to do this, remember that all points where there are joints or junctions, using screwed terminals, must remain accessible. If a junction is not accessible then you must use what is termed a "maintenance free" junction, such as THESE and THESE. Other brands are available!

All devices must also be accessible. They will, and do fail. I've had several occasions to bang holes in a customer's ceiling because some numpty has screwed a lighting transformer to a joist, and then put up the plasterboard ceiling!

Thanks....its a really good point. I wont be hiding anything behind a stud wall that isnt accessible.... I am going to have to have some access pannels. THESE are the junctions in place at the moment whilst the room is being done....are these considered maintainance free?

 

[davelx]

Thanks....its a really good point. I wont be hiding anything behind a stud wall that isnt accessible.... I am going to have to have some access pannels. THESE are the junctions in place at the moment whilst the room is being done....are these considered maintainance free

No. Anything with screw terminals is not maintenance free.

Look here: https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/ASJ804.html