Remove and hide this

[Ragamuffin]

Evening all.

Following some brilliant help yesterday I have returned for more advice .

I currently have this horrendous live point randomly situated in the middle of my wall.

I would ideally like to remove this and cover it.

My question is, can you please recommend something to isolate each wire, waygos are too big to fit in the recess and how one would go about covering it?

Could I fill over it, but the only problem is that there will be live wires there in future, I am unable to see where the wires go, the other side of the wall is a cupboard under the stairs with no visible wire, the cable seems to be coming from the top rather than from the bottom.

I have switched all my breakers off individually to see what circuit it runs on but it has remained live all the time, live only drops out when the main breaker is switched off.

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[littlespark]

Strange place for it to be?

Is that high up on the wall, or maybe switch height?
It may be a location for a 2 way switch that is unused. A bedroom? It may have been for above the headboard.

Why it’s still showing live, I don’t know.

 

[davesparks]

That's a small joint box with its lid removed, do you have the lid?

No you can't just plaster over it, nor can you put anything else on the end of the cable and just bury it in the wall without it being obviously identifiable.

The ideal solution is obviously to trave and remove the redundant cable. You could also trace and disconnect it at its other end then bury it in the wall.

 

[Ragamuffin]

Strange place for it to be?

Is that high up on the wall, or maybe switch height?
It may be a location for a 2 way switch that is unused. A bedroom? It may have been for above the headboard.

Why it’s still showing live, I don’t know.

It's slightly higher than a light switch location and is located in our front room. This is one side of a door frame and on the other side of the frame there is a 2 way switch already which operates my living room lights.

I am too baffled as to why it remains live

 

[Ragamuffin]

That's a small joint box with its lid removed, do you have the lid?

No you can't just plaster over it, nor can you put anything else on the end of the cable and just bury it in the wall without it being obviously identifiable.

The ideal solution is obviously to trave and remove the redundant cable. You could also trace and disconnect it at its other end then bury it in the wall.

Yes I have the lid so it's currently safe.

I'll dig deeper at the weekend to trace it, wish me luck!

 

[Avo Mk8]

I am too baffled as to why it remains live

Me too. Shouldn't be that you can't turn it off with one of the mcb's. Could you tell us what you are measuring 'live' with please?

 

[SJD]

The cable has the look of being for a light switch, possibly the other end is at the light fitting or the actual switch. For example, if the door used to be hung the other side at one point.

 

[Ragamuffin]

Me too. Shouldn't be that you can't turn it off with one of the mcb's. Could you tell us what you are measuring 'live' with please?

I'm using a LAP contactless tester that beeps and flashes red when a live is detected, live goes off when I switch off the main breaker.

I'll try and trace it this weekend, if no joy I'll have an electrician take a better look at it.

 

[Ragamuffin]

The cable has the look of being for a light switch, possibly the other end is at the light fitting or the actual switch. For example, if the door used to be hung the other side at one point.

This makes sense, as it looks like there was a sliding door or something mounted there previously, attached a picture of the door and frame.

 

[Avo Mk8]

I'm using a LAP contactless tester that beeps and flashes red when a live is detected, live goes off when I switch off the main breaker.

The reason I ask is that:
a) it is most unusual, well wrong, for a circuit to remain live after ALL the circuit breakers in the consumer unit are switched off (other than the main switch)
and so
b) I wonder if it is actually live - a non-contact detector can show live when disconnected wires run alongside live wires, as a voltage can be induced by capacitance between the wires. I'm not at all suggesting you treat this as disconnected without further investigation, but checking with a proper dead tester or test meter is needed to establish what the situation is.

A good idea to trace it nevertheless, and treat it as live until proven otherwise.

 

[grumpyjohn01]

I reckon its an old roomstat probably still wired in to the c/h controls or is just getting a ghost voltage on OPs voltstick, have you had a wireless / smart stat added?

 

[Ragamuffin]

I reckon its an old roomstat probably still wired in to the c/h controls or is just getting a ghost voltage on OPs voltstick, have you had a wireless / smart stat added?

Evening,

We had an old honeywell stat on another wall in the same room, this has been removed and wires to it made safe and have a hive now instead.

 

[Avo Mk8]

Evening,

We had an old honeywell stat on another wall in the same room, this has been removed and wires to it made safe and have a hive now instead.

That triple core and E cable is typical of what would be used for an old stat. as grumpyjohn suggested.
Are you sure this is not the location where the Honeywell stat was removed from?

 

[Ragamuffin]

That triple core and E cable is typical of what would be used for an old stat. as grumpyjohn suggested.
Are you sure this is not the location where the Honeywell stat was removed from?

Definitely not, the stat was on a different wall but in the same room, I'm assuming that the previous owners fitted a sliding door and possibly cupboards which obstructed the point im having issues with, so every chance the stat was moved but it has been moved approx 4 metres away and all of the wiring is inside the walls??

If the stat was moved surely it would be impossible to relocate and wire in this way.

Picture shows the old stat on the right and the point I'm trying to remove on the left.

 

[Avo Mk8]

Definitely not, the stat was on a different wall but in the same room, I'm assuming that the previous owners fitted a sliding door and possibly cupboards which obstructed the point im having issues with, so every chance the stat was moved but it has been moved approx 4 metres away and all of the wiring is inside the walls??

If the stat was moved surely it would be impossible to relocate and wire in this way.

Picture shows the old stat on the right and the point I'm trying to remove on the left.

OK thanks. They both seem to be roughly the same height? As you say maybe it was moved previously to make way for the sliding door!
If they are stud or cavity walls it's possible to fish cables if you're lucky!

I'm still concerned that you apparently have power on your junction box when you switch off all the breakers. That should be impossible! Did you switch off all the breakers at the same time - ie all off together?
If when you checked, you actually switched breakers off one at a time and worked through them all, but you detected a voltage all the time, that supports my theory it might be a ghost voltage, indicated by your contactless tester, but the cable is not actually connected to anything.

 

[grumpyjohn01]

OK thanks. They both seem to be roughly the same height? As you say maybe it was moved previously to make way for the sliding door!
If they are stud or cavity walls it's possible to fish cables if you're lucky!

I'm still concerned that you apparently have power on your junction box when you switch off all the breakers. That should be impossible! Did you switch off all the breakers at the same time - ie all off together?
If when you checked, you actually switched breakers off one at a time and worked through them all, but you detected a voltage all the time, that supports my theory it might be a ghost voltage, indicated by your contactless tester, but the cable is not actually connected to anything.

I think you are right, I was wondering about the holes in the wall.....may have been done by an ambitious wet pants, if so original cable may still be wired in somehow? OP needs to check with proper voltage tester.