Cable support in under floor void

[gazdkw82]

Upon moving some floorboards to drain the boiler I stuck my head in the void that's under my downstairs living room floor and noticed the cables between sockets are just hanging, suspended in free air. Is there any need to add support? I've taken the socket faceplates off and it doesn't seem the weight of the hanging cables are causing strain or pulling the conductors within the terminals.

If support is needed, how do you actually get down into the void to do it? It's about 3ft deep

Thanks

 

[Pete999]

I would suspect the sparky who did the wiring fished these cables across the floor, done it loads of times.

 

[SparkyChick]

If support is needed, how do you actually get down into the void to do it? It's about 3ft deep

Thanks

At Mum and Dad's place, Dad cut a hole in the floor and made an access trap. He knocked a few bricks out of some of the supports to create openings between the rooms. In their place, the supports walls between the rooms are like a checkerboard pattern so there is lots of space for air flow, just don't make the holes too big and put bricks back in them with a wooden wedge to restore the support.

In essence, climb down through the floor and crawl around.

It's not very pleasant down there, but it makes getting cables around pretty easy

 

[gazdkw82]

So it's ok for cables to be dangling from one socket to the next?

 

[Richard Burns]

It is probably not terrible to have the cable unsupported so long as it is is held at the walls so that it cannot draw back into the void or put strain on the accessories.
You could fix lengths of conduit to the underside of the joists to run the cable through if you were keen but it is not easy to do from above.
Have a long reach grabber available to pick up the conduit, clips, screws, screwdriver...

 

[The Ghost]

Having wired loads of thirties house and crawled under the boards, cables have never been clipped to joists. No it is not ideal cables like support to feel they are performing to regs. The good news is that I have never in forty five years been called in to remedy cable sag from this practice. Some guys bang a nail into the joist and use a bit of cable to loop around the nail and support installed cable.

 

[telectrix]

Some guys bang a nail into the joist and use a bit of cable to loop around the nail and support installed cable.

others use an apprentice.can't have an apprentice going home all clean.

 

[Devonchris]

3ft, that's a luxury. As a lad I was expected to crawl under anything more than 10 inches from the bottom of a joist.

Often there is a trap door by the front door. Usually under the door mat well.

 

[uksrevivor]

3ft is luxury lol if you cant find a void hatch then as sparky chick said in her post you can make one but always cut the floorboards centre of the joists so you will be able to screw the new void boards back down and it would be advisable to screw in extra lengths of 4"x 2" to the existing joist for extra support and something more solid to screw into. check your head torch batteries before entering as well lol