AV cables in solid wall - what the regs say?

[Deuce]

Hi all,

Just being cheeky and asking for some advice really..

In my new house, we have solid walls throughout - great, but not so great for my home cinema kit. My issue is that whilst I would can chase the AV cables to wherever they need to be, I would prefer to do it in such a way that leaves the system open for future expansion. In the previous house we had stud walls and I was able to route flexible trunking between wall ports and pull through/swap whatever I needed.

In an ideal world, I would do something similar by cutting into the block, embedding some solid wall PVC trunking/pipe, and plastering back over. I can keep all my cuts continuous in either the horizontal or vertical, but my concern is what depth I'm allowed to cut into the block wall. Ideally I would need to go in to the block in 50x50mm channels to allow the space to run multiple feeds including moulded connectors... I'm not as regs savvy as you lot so thought I'd just ask the experts

NB for the mains power I'm chasing along separate routes to run the mains independently from speaker flex/hdmi etc.

 

[Squid]

So you can isolate it at night easily, (my mate is a fireman !!)

Just pull the main fuse for the whole house............

 

[DefyG]

I normally chase in 100 X 50 plastic trunking from low level to behind the tv. Use a couple of 47mm(or 35mm) deep flush twin boxes fixed

Used to use 50mm trunking when Scart leads were the norm but usually find 40mm is plenty now and 25mm is usually enough but second the ribbon type HDMI's

 

[Deuce]

So you can isolate it at night easily, (my mate is a fireman !!)

Are you saying fit the FCU simply to give an accessible switch (isolation point) then? If so I could simply extend the power cable to the TV straight to a low level FCU, no need for plug+socket at all.

 

[Deuce]

I just want to add to those kind enough to have replied, that whilst I'm slightly taking advantage by talking about AV stuff on these forums... I do fully expect that very soon a lot of sparks will be getting asked to run AV/network/signal on a regular basis. Such connections become increasingly vital for people, and many don't have the basic skills required to do the work themselves.

 

[Squid]

Have you tried AVforums.com?

 

[Deuce]

Have you tried AVforums.com?

I'm a regular

But of course, those guys are not used to worrying about regulation so much...

They can tell you about sonic reflection etc, but they can't offer much in terms of regulation