Re: British (european?) kitchen counter electric outlets

On 6/19/2024 1:42 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

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.

>
Nut how, physically, do you do this, given that the existing wire is in this
"cavity" AND any new wire would also have to be "threaded" through it? Here,
worst case, you cut a hole in the drywall, fish the wire through and then
patch/paint the hole.

 You start from an existing fixture and track the cable back. Easy now that there are decent mains wiring detectors not so easy back in the 70's. The hard part is knocking out the brickwork to make a recess.

But there's no "slack" in the cable to tolerate the cost of INSERTING (ring)
another device (?).
I.e., even if you can find the cable and access it, cutting it to add the new
device consumes some of the existing cable's length.
E.g., here, you would cut the cable and pull the free ends into a new junction
box.  You'd need at least 6 inches on the end of each cut segment to come into
the box where you could connect to a device -- or, add a pigtail that connects
to the device.
So, in practice, you have to replace part of the cable because there is
note enough slack to meet this additional length of wire necessitated by
entering the new junction box -- especially if the box will be above or below
the path of the *wire*.
Here, you can add a stub diverging from an existing box; there's no need
to preserve this "ring".  In your case, it seems like you would have to
literally insert the box *into* the ring (?)