Re: British (european?) kitchen counter electric outlets

On 17/06/2024 18:54, Don Y wrote:

On 6/17/2024 7:16 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

Yes. Our 'old'houses have internal walls made of either brick (4" thick) and plastered. it's hard to recess the brick to take
power sockets, but quite common. The cabling runs down the cavity (4") between the internal brickwork and external brickwork.

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The house design he describes is relatively modern transition probably around the 1930's. Pre 1910 and solid wall is much more likely. Anything habitable built post WWII is likely to be cavity wall with two walls of 4" brick and some rigid metal ties between them. Modern build the cavity is typically filled with rockwool or PU foam and the inner skin is of much cheaper big breezeblock whilst the outer skin is proper brick.
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There is an industry of cavity wall insulation retrofitted to these older originally air gap based insulation buildings.
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There have been a few scandals where bad builders forgot the gap ties! Or worse deliberately left them out because of bad practice!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-37093904
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Pretty serious to have brick walls falling down like that!
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My own house is much older (early Victorian and of handmade imperial size bricks). Its outer walls are three courses of solid high fired Victorian engineering brick. It is difficult to drill through since there are enough nice round flints in the brick clay matrix to make drills snatch.
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Last tradesman to try in my house ruined a core drill in the process and had to go off and buy another to finish the job.

 So, wire/cable just "hangs" (gravity) in that space?  Resting on <something>
as it enters the void and then supported by the connection at the distant end?

Remember that the void has steel wall ties about every 18" in each direction so the cables are resting on them but not tied down. They are fairly rigid so don't move once they are installed.

 When *initially* wired, how would cable move across (left-to-right) the
room?  Would each "destination" be serviced by routing a cable DOWN from
the ceiling directly above the point on the wall?  Or, would the wire
drape from one "destination" to the next, sideways, IN that void?

Convention is that most horizontal wiring is out of sight under the floor above or on the surface of timbers in the loft. In theory I think the code requires them to be anchored every couple of feet. In practice I have seen plenty of loose wires straggling across spaces (and even more horrific plumbing mistakes). In older homes where electricity was a later addition the cables are often buried in the plasterwork. Modern build they tend to be inside stud walls or the cavity. I've never looked to see how they do it but I'm pretty sure the brickies build the walls and the sparks only move in when the house is watertight with a roof on.

 If you opted to *add* some device (outlet, etc.), how would you tie into the
existing wiring?  Or, would you have to start back at the load center?

You could do either depending on which was easier. Breaking into a ring main isn't that hard and that is the normal configuration in the UK.

Here, cable has to be secured to the building members, regularly -- and within
a few inches of its termination.

In theory I think that is true in the UK too and most of it is. But not all installers are diligent and building inspections these days are cursory to non-existent.

Directly onto the brick surface?  Or, was lath/chickenwire installed to support
the plaster?

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Sometimes they did use chicken wire to make thick plaster stay. Most houses they don't bother and the plaster is in two grades a coarse grey one with horsehair or other binder in it ~2cm and a final thin skim 3-5mm of pink plaster on top. Good plasterers are in great demand. Polishing it to a fine flat finish requires real skill (as does making it stick to a ceiling!)

 Yes, most folks have decided this level of detail isn't important in their
homes.   Here, it is (now) done with powered rotary sanders to "level off" the
"excess" plaster in the skim coat (as most homes are plaster over drywall).

It is amazing to watch a good plasterer at work.

Chickenwire plays hell with Wifi (as does the density of the brickwork). The thickest walls right in the core of my house are about 4' thick where the kitchen range used to be.

 Metal ductwork creates a similar problem, here.

Foil coated foam insulation is another common Wifi blocker too.
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Martin Brown