Hiding Overhead Cable Running Down Front of House - Regs?

Recently had the overhead cable renewed from 2 uninsulated power lines to a new single core insulated cable XLPE AWA style.

Were about to have the front of the house rendered and would ideally not have a thick black cable tacked down the centre of the house.

What's the regs in terms of putting it into galv steel capping and then having thermal board fitted over the top before render applied?

You would need to speak to the supply company, it’s their cable their rules

DNO's cable, you would need to speak to them. expect them to say no

DNO's hate it when they come across rendered in cables, so I'd expect them to say no

ryanepveritt said:

Recently had the overhead cable renewed from 2 uninsulated power lines to a new single core insulated cable XLPE AWA style.

Were about to have the front of the house rendered and would ideally not have a thick black cable tacked down the centre of the house.

What's the regs in terms of putting it into galv steel capping and then having thermal board fitted over the top before render applied?

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Your question hits upon a similar sort of problem that is often encountered...
Where an electrician does all of his/her installation work correct and compliant with all current regs..
but then a.n.other tradesperson comes along later and messes it all up.....

e.g. CU is replaced and bonding all upgraded...
But 6-months later, a kitchen fitter comes along and boxes everything in. out of sight, so you also cannot access anything!!

Or some PVC conduit supplying power & lights in a combined garage/workshop..
then customer decides to have all the walls boarded to make the workshop a bit warmer..
In the process numerous screw joints in previously accessible conduit boxes are now all buried below insulated plasterboard!!

Your basic regulation questions would primarily relate to the current carrying capacity of the cable..
and how it is affected by your alterations...?

BUT in relation to BS7671 wiring regulations.. it is PART 1, Chapter 11 that states it does NOT apply to the distributors cable..

and/or possibly chapter 82 if you are also a Prosumer? i.e. you a generating electricity, and you feed some back into the grid?

As the others have said... you need to speak to your DNO..
no good googling and surfing the inter-web for a definitive answer.

Oh.. forgot to say..
Welcome to the forumbulator..

the bar is on the 6th floor, (the lift is just to the left of the reception.. or stairs are just past the gents loo's)


Unless its a Thursday and the month has a 'P' in it..
in which case the bar is moved to the conference room on the 4th floor......

But I may be wrong?

If it were me, i would just do it. It is YOUR house.. Just remember, regs mean nothing [especially to the DNO who simply do as they like] We live in a country where the prime minister is a convicted criminal, so why are you worried about boxing in a cable??? The dno will never know and if they do just say "no idea, was like it when i moved here"

john..

I was going to chase the wall out, then put it in a galvanised steel capping so at least it was flush to the front of the house.

not sure that I would use a steel capping, could you not use PVC capping, or even better PVC trunking flush with the render ,then if the cable ever need's replacing just remove the lid to replace it ,when its painted you will not se it

tezla22 said:

I was going to chase the wall out, then put it in a galvanised steel capping so at least it was flush to the front of the house.


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Chasing out for that sort of capping could structurally damage your house It’s meant for surface use.

We had two supplies and two meters to our house when we moved in. One was for a self-contained annexe. We had two poles in the garden with an underground supply cable running up one pole then two uninsulated wires running between the poles and the the two insulated cables running to different parts of the house. The cables between the poles had previously been repaired (spliced?) over the years and the supply company regularly (annually?) came out to inspect everything.

During one inspection I got talking to the lead guy and casually mentioned that it would be nice to have an underground supply and have the poles removed but I guessed it would be too expensive and/or too much trouble. To my amazement he said he could get this done on the basis that the uninsulated cables between the poles had been repaired too often (too many splices in the cable) and would have to be replaced with a single insulated cable. He also said the replacement cable might just as well be buried, although his company would regard this as an alteration and therefore charge me a small fortune. He suggested that if I were to arrange the required trenching work and install the necessary conduit then he'd be happy to run the new cable in that, which would cost me nothing. He also agreed to connect the new cable to a new meter so I could have the whole house on one meter, though of course I'd need my own electrician to connect to the new meter.

So, that's exactly what we did and the supplier charged me nothing at all. They even let me keep the poles after removing them. My only cost (apart from the house electrician) was for a day's work for the local 'man-with-a-digger'. £200 I recall (it was about 12 years ago).

I doubt I'd have been able to get any of this done by talking directly to the supplier company but the guys in the field could not have been more helpful and were absolutely brilliant.

Mind you, I'm not so sure about their record-keeping because for the next few years we had different teams of people visiting to do their regular inspections and I had to explain that the poles had been removed and the supply cable was now buried. It was also fun explaining to the meter reader that the second meter he was looking for had been removed, but that's another story!

So, while not directly applicable to the OP, I would suggest that supply changes (capping a cable in this case) happen all the time and records can get out of step with reality but as long as there's nothing inherently dangerous involved then the supply companies with just go along with it and eventually update their records.

Having said that, in this particular case, I tend to agree with the above comments about using some surface capping and painting it to match the render.

A friend of mine is a BT engineer. He drilled through a hidden rendered in DNO cable - put him in hospital.