Made a mistake when insulating

[HawkEye244]

When renovating my house I fitted Rockwall insulation to wherever I could. The internal floors and some of the floors are insulated (wherever I could stuff it in or slide it in). I will be running new downlights soon to a few rooms, and of course have made life extremely difficult for myself!

I realise now that this was a big mistake but what to do ? - should I rip out and remove all insulation between the joists, or try to run the cables around it ? There may be instances where the cables are bunched up against the insulation but I was hoping that as the lights will be the new low wattage LEDs this will not be a problem. It does say that insulation can lie directly on top of the hoods but my concern is the cabling itself ?

Again, I made a mistake and regret doing this.

 

[sparkwright]

Generally speaking 1.0mm2 lighting cable is man enough to cope with the warmth created by rockwall insulation.

 

[Tigercubrider]

Not qualified but probably fine
Occasionally I leave my CFL bedroom light on all day, only noticing it when I go up to bed.
The bathroom tungsten light is going to be replaced with an led panel that's bought but still waiting for me to get off my backside and it it.

I'd have thought that a fault would be an issue but unlikely?

 

[JohnD]

There may be instances where the cables are bunched up against the insulation but I was hoping that as the lights will be the new low wattage LEDs this will not be a problem. It does say that insulation can lie directly on top of the hoods but my concern is the cabling itself ?

it is good practice to lay insulation so that cables are either underneath it (so that heat can escape into the plaster and away) or on top of it (so heat can rise into the air, through the floorboards and away. This avoids the need to calculate the reduction of capacity due to surrounding cables in insulation.

Downlighters (if you insist on having them) can be fitted with a purpose-made hood, or you can make up a simple open-ended box in plasterboard (which is fireproof) to put over them to hold insulation away. This also prevents draughts and smoke rising through the hole in the ceiling, or dirt falling down. I recall a major fire when dust and fluff in the void under floorboards and behind wallboards ignited after an electrical fault.

As @sparkwright said, modern lighting circuits are very lightly loaded. Electric showers and immersion heaters are more heavily loaded, so you must take extra care not to pack the cables in insulation.

 

[HawkEye244]

Thanks very much for the useful and helpful advice. I will follow instruction.

I've since also learnt that packing too much insulation in can actually increase the transfer of noise if not careful..!