Cables flush to outside wall but light fitting is fully flush to wall

greensalad

Electrician came round to quote for some jobs and one is fitting a back floodlight (where there is already an older broken one). 

He suggested while he's here, we might as well replace another old ropey light as it's on the same cable so he suggested getting a light fitting I liked and he'd put that up too. We have Philips Hue everywhere (and he's fitting another Philips Hue lantern at the front of the house) so that's what I bought.

However the issue I have is that all the cabling is pinned to the brick wall, which seems fairly standard, but none of the Philips Hue light fittings have gaps on the rims for putting a cable through.

For the lantern at the front of the house, the electrician suggested he could just hang it right up high where the fascia is (we have low eaves so it won't be too high) as there is already a cut in the fascia for the cabling.

But I haven't yet spoken to him about the light for the back. I've got to leave him unsupervised on Saturday to work so although I've told my builder who has booked him that I'm happy to "go with the flow" and just make it work whatever needs doing (I'm not overly precious about things and both him and the builder are decent at doing a good job) I'd still like to have an idea of what he can do.

Can he chase the cable into the brick just right at the point it needs to pop behind the light fitting?

Perhaps he could cut the rim of the light fitting to make a notch for the cable?

I feel like there must be a solution for this sort of thing!

fenwick458

greensalad said:

Can he chase the cable into the brick just right at the point it needs to pop behind the light fitting?

Perhaps he could cut the rim of the light fitting to make a notch for the cable?

I feel like there must be a solution for this sort of thing!

yes a little chase could be made for the cable
wouldn't advise cutting the rim it will be difficult to properly seal up afterwards, you don't really want to use the top entries on external fittings they are prone to letting water in
solutions are either chase the brick, or you could stand the light off the wall by 2-3mm if it's a really flat wall using some spacers if you didn't want to chase it in 
those sorts of spacers are built into a lot of external lights so you can run cables behind and in the back

greensalad

I might suggest the chase then. I'm surprised there isn't a hole for the cable to go in somewhere. I understand what you mean now about letting water in but I imagine at the base would be fine? Very annoying.

Bendy_House

As you say, Greensalad, a hole at the bottom should be fine as no water will make its way up there.

Or, a small chase in the wall to allow the cable to dip under the light fitting should also be simple. Or - but I doubt the sparky would want to entertain this - a mounting plate (could be timber) is fitted to the wall first, with a channel for the cable and a hole to allow the cable to come up into the light fitting mounted on top.

I'm sure the sparky will make his judgement depending on the construction of the light fitting. If it has a raised area around where it's mounted to the wall with a void underneath, then it should be very easy to make a hole or slot in that for the cable to enter from below (provided it's plastic or aluminium). If the light fitting doesn't allow for that - if it has a 'flat' mounting plate with no room underneath it - then a wee chase in the wall is equally easy.

This should present no issues to a clued-up sparky; they have all sorts of tools to cope with channels, chases, holes, slots, grooves, rebates, troughs, and... I've run out of thingies :-(

greensalad

Perfect! Reassuring that it's fairly standard and he shouldn't have issues coming up with a solution then!