Situations when you need to change the position of the outlet, built into the wall or openly placed on its surface, are not so rare in everyday practice. They arise for a variety of reasons, explained by a coincidence. Most often, moving the outlet in the apartment is a more complicated procedure than it seems at first glance.
The reasons for the transfer
The main reasons forcing to change the location of the outlet in a private house or communal apartment are:
- Planning to put a sample of new furniture or newly acquired household appliances (electric stove, for example) at a wall site with an outlet on it.
- The desire to lengthen the lead wire or shorten it by some amount.
- Overhaul associated with the decoration of walls in the premises.
- Changing the type of installation of the outlet product from the secretive method to open placement or vice versa.
There are several options for moving the outlet in the apartment, differing in the methods of their installation within the premises served. When openly placed (on the socket), an extension wire is laid over the surface of the wall. In the case of a hidden arrangement of the product, one will have to deal with gating — making a special groove in the plaster or concrete, into which the stacked wire is subsequently laid.
PUE requirements and security measures
Before moving the outlet from one place to another or changing the way it is fastened, you will need to familiarize yourself with the provisions of the EMP regarding the features of these procedures. According to these documents, it is allowed to transfer outlet products in compliance with the following rules:
- To lengthen the wiring, it is recommended to use a three-core power cable of the VVGng brand with a core section of at least 1.5 mm2.
- It is recommended to install a junction box at the connection point (with an open gasket, it is allowed to do without it).
- Sockets are allowed to be mounted at a height of about 30-50 centimeters from the floor, the maximum permissible level is up to one meter.
- Some of the products of a special type can be installed in special skirting boards with cable channels made of fireproof plastic materials.
With the top wiring of electric wires, standard products can be placed at a height of up to 1.5 meters.
The PUE stipulates that the sockets can be mounted open or closed. In the first version, they are installed directly on the base of the wall or on special socket boxes, and in the second, they are recessed into pre-prepared recesses with a landing case. In any case, during the operation to move the outlet, you should remember about safe working practices, which are reduced to observing the following rules:
- Before moving the outlet to another place, you must turn off the line machine, through which high voltage is supplied to this line.
- Then you need to make sure again that there is no 220 (380) Volt on the phase contact, for which you will have to use an indicator screwdriver.
- Before starting work on lengthening the line, measures are taken to exclude the possibility of accidentally turning on the circuit breaker. To do this, a warning sign is posted on its body.
According to the PUE, the adoption of special measures to protect a person from electric shock is necessary not only at the factory, but also in the domestic environment.
Required Tools and Materials
If it is necessary to move the socket that is openly mounted on the wall from the fiberboard, for example, side cutters, a screwdriver for disassembling it and a drill with a crown-type nozzle will be required from the tool. The first two positions are needed to disassemble the outlet itself and to prepare extension cores. An electric tool will be required in order to drill a hole with a diameter corresponding to the size of the outlet in a new place in a decorative coating (gypsum board, for example). From the material for the work you need to prepare:
- A piece of cable plastic channel.
- A piece of 3-core wire of the required length corresponding to the distance to a new place.
- Synthetic glue or a set of screws for fixing a plastic blank on the wall.
- A set of electrical connectors that ensure reliable contact of old wires with new pieces.
Before lengthening the outlet line in the walls of a concrete monolith, you will have to stock up with a special tool called a stroborez. If you can’t get it or it's too expensive, you can use the usual grinder, through which a groove is cut in the wall.
If there is no grinder, it remains to resort to the old "grandfather" method, which consists in the use of a hammer and a chisel. Due to the complexity of the gating operation, the method is implemented only with a small length of the stacked line.
Features of the transfer in houses of various buildings
Differences in the methods for lengthening or shortening the wiring supplied to the outlet are manifested mainly in the material of its walls. According to this criterion, city houses are divided into panel-type buildings, which are modular structures of typical reinforced-concrete slabs and brick buildings. From the point of view of transport, walls, which can be:
- Purely concrete surfaces, wallpapering, for example.
- Finished with plaster or plasterboard.
- With a decorative coating such as fiberboard.
For each of the options for the condition of the walls, a different method of laying cable cores is suitable. In the case of concrete and plastered surfaces, if it is necessary to lengthen the electrical wiring, it will be necessary to make strobes in them, which then fit an additional length of cable.
The correct approach to laying the extension cord in the presence of decorative finish involves wiring it under the finishing material. In a new place, a hole is drilled along the diameter of the portable outlet. Existing regulations do not prohibit outdoor laying directly on decorative material, which is sometimes done if you want to arrange wiring in the "retro" style.
Wiring Methods
Any electrical connection between wires supplying power to a switch or socket can be made in the following standard ways:
- Using special adapter screw terminals.
- By ordinary twisting followed by welding.
- Fixing using plastic caps.
- The formation of the same twist, but with soldering.
- Using branded terminal blocks brand Wago.
When choosing a specific connection method, it is first necessary to consider the material of the wires. If they are made on the basis of different metals (copper and aluminum), the formed compound should not have direct contact, capable of oxidizing and degrading over time. In this case, the first and last methods are suitable in which the terminals act as an adapter.
Twisting is permissible only with homogeneous materials of the initial and stackable conductors.
Wiring diagrams
Two schemes of various complexity are known that allow you to transfer the outlet to a new place without destroying the wall decoration material:
- By forming a kind of loop, in which from the previous installation location to a new point, the wires are laid by simply building up the phase and earth buses.
- Laying a completely renewed line, starting from a linear machine and ending in the desired area of the wall in the kitchen, for example.
The first of these techniques is used for small distances of the new installation point from the old place, and the second - if the distance exceeds 5-7 meters.
The second version of the laying will require capital work related to the preparation of the scheme of the future route, as well as the selection of the type of wire and its wiring method. But then, in this case, it is possible to do without an undesirable intermediate connection that can degrade the performance of the entire power supply system. If an extension scheme is nevertheless chosen, the following important points must be considered:
- To implement this option, it is best to use wires of the same material and with the same cross-section as the source cable to the old location. This will improve the quality of the connections and dispense with special terminal blocks.
- The reliability of the loop of several parallel-connected sockets in comparison with the laying of a new line is very low.
- A random break at the very beginning will lead to a blackout of the entire chain of outlets connected to it.
In accordance with the requirements of the PUE, extension can be used to connect powerful household appliances, such as electric stoves, refrigerators, microwave ovens and washing machines.
When choosing an extension cord connection scheme for a new outlet (sockets), one should proceed from the specific operating conditions of household equipment and the quality of the wall surfaces. Taking these factors into account allows you to successfully cope with the task and eliminate problems that often arise in electrical circuits.
