While we were installing a new central heating system at our client’s new home the decorator was also stuck in and getting started on the work he had to do. While he was scraping some loose paint off the wall pictured below we heard a bang and saw a large blue flash. The smell of ozone appeared and a big chunk of the decorators metal putty knife was vaporised. How fortunate the handle was plastic!

It turned out that this booby trap had been set by some idiot years earlier. The ”electrician’ needed to run a cable to a newly placed light switch on the other side of the wall.  Although the wiring is in a designated safe zone (within 150mm from the corner of an inside wall) the cables were not running vertically or horizontally but rather skew-whiff. The cables were not beneath the plaster nor protected by any mechanical means. The cables were barely covered by a paper thin coating of plaster and when the decorators knife caught the insulation on the old fabric covered cable – POOF! Fortunately no one was hurt!

We traced to old cable back to it’s source and removed it. It was replaced with a new length of PVC T&E. The wall was in such a position that we were able to make proper junctions and then cover the portion of the wall we had to disrupt with plaster board. It is now safe and looks good as the original plaster looks too have been completed by another amature.

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