How to avoid electrical cables when drilling into walls

When something needs fixed around the house, the simplest thing to do is call out an expert and let them sort it. But this comes with a cost, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get someone out quickly.

It may be tempting, then, to attempt a spot of DIY. While this can be fine for simple jobs, it can also be fraught with disaster, and if you’re not completely confident in what you’re doing, you could end up making a much bigger problem for yourself. If you do decide to get stuck in yourself, you might turn to social media for some help and advice on getting the job done properly, reports the Mirror.

This is where Fix it with Fraz comes in. A DIY expert with more than 280,000 followers on TikTok, he regularly shares useful tips, saying he hopes to “give you the confidence to do jobs yourself, and also so you don’t have to pay people to come out and do odd jobs that you can do yourself (and) save yourself the money”.

He recently shared a clip detailing how to ensure you’re not about to sever an electrical cable while drilling into a wall. He said: “Are you worried about hitting an electrical cable or drilling into a water pipe when drilling into your wall?

“Of course you are, it’s perfectly normal. You don’t want to go to do a job, drill into electrical cable or hit a water pipe and make it a complete disaster. Let me show you how you can massively reduce the risk to give you the confidence to do your job without using a detector, because some of them don’t work very well.”

He went on to say: “So let me show you what you can do to avoid it. So, it’s really about getting an understanding as to how electrical cables and plumbing pipes are run when houses are built.”

Pointing to a standard light switch on a wall, Fraz outlined what he refers to as the “danger zones”, stretching in a vertical line above and below the switch, and a horizontal line on either side. He demonstrated this by revealing another wall where the wires from a switch had been fitted externally rather than behind the wall, showing that the cables running to and from the switch extended vertically above it, and horizontally from one side.

He went on to illustrate his point by preparing to hang a picture on a narrow wall featuring a light switch. “We’ve got the light switch, we’ve got no socket below it,” he said.

“I can pretty much guarantee there’s going to be cables run either from the bottom or from the top (of the socket). My best guess is from the top.” Gesturing towards the area above the switch, he added: “Let’s just avoid this area here.”

While many household tasks can be tackled yourself, there are certain jobs that must be left to qualified professionals. Consumer champion Which? stated: “Some electrical jobs need to be signed off by local authority building control, unless they’re done by a registered electrician who can sign off the work themselves.

“These jobs include installing a new circuit or replacing a fuse box. We recommend you hire a registered electrician for all work that must comply with part-P regulations. If you don’t, you must tell building control first (you can’t start the work until you get the go ahead) and pay a fee for an inspection.

“Similarly, any jobs involving gas should only be done by Gas Safe-registered engineers so you don’t put yourself or others at risk. All gas businesses must be on the Gas Safe Register by law. While plumbing jobs don’t usually have the same potential for dangerous errors, DIY plumbing mistakes could still leave you with injuries or cause flooding and water damage in your home.”