in this video I'm going to take a look at how to clip cables to walls this is
particularly useful if you are installing CCTV etc. before we start
I'd like to point out that if you are using masonry nails you should wear a good
pair of safety glasses the first thing you need to do is get the correct sized
clip for the cable that you are using basically there are two types of cable
there's round cable like that or like that which is cat 5e cable or if you're
installing a fixed electrical installation you get twin core and
they're careful wire which is often called flat cable so for a flat cable
like that, you'd use the correct clip like so that will then hold the cable in
position if you are installing twin core and earth cable like that, there will be a
guide inside of the on-site guide for the latest electrical regulations which
will tell you approximately how far apart you need to space the clips it is
important to get the correct sized clip and for this earth wire that is a
seven millimeter round clip you can see that that is the perfect size for that
well you don't want to do is get one that's too big that's a loose fit on
there and you don't want one that's too small so for the majority of cable clips
these all come with a masonry nail installed like so now the problem with
masonry nails is that you can't actually knock them into brick or hard concrete
you have absolutely no chance so what you tend to do with these is knock the
mass of a nail into the mortar between the bricks the problem with that is that
sometimes the mortar is so tough that you can get them in and also some mortar
especially on all the properties is very crumbly you'll knock that in and it just
won't hold at all for larger diameter cables you can get cable cleats these
are also very handy when a few small cables need fixing close to each
other if you have a property that which is rendered or pebble dashed on the
outside this can make it extremely difficult installing cable clips it is
important when you install an external cable that you have a drip loop and it's
important to always feed the cable in from the bottom what you don't want to
do is put an enclosure on the wall or anything like and up the cable going in
the top because that is where the water will get in these are a great idea these
are pro fix nail plugs what you do with these is you drill a 5 millimeter
hole knock that into the wall and then you can actually put the masonry nail
directly into that and that will hold really well the advantage of these is
that you can use these on virtually any wall so if it has been rendered or
pebble dashed or if you need to fix into the brick you can do so using these very
easily cable cleats are used for armored cable and you would normally use a
standard plug and an external screw to fix the cable to the wall but these are
also very handy if you need to fix a few smaller diameter cables such as network
cables or camera cables to the wall so recently I did a job and actually just
used a cable cleat like so and I've drilled two holes put two wall plugs in
and used to external screws and that held the cables perfectly you could even
probably get two or three more cables in there so if you get the clip put it on
the cable put that in position where you want it you don't actually need to
hold the clip you can just let it sit on the actual cable and then you can just
tap that in gently using a hammer you do need to use quite firm blows
and as you can see that has now got that you could then put you next clip in a
bit further down the spacing will depend on which cable you are using and how
flexible it is so basically if you are going horizontally you can follow the
horizontal mortar lines or you can follow the perpendicular ones if you are
going down vertically the pro-fix nail plugs are a great idea but unfortunately
some cable clips come with very small masonry nails just take a look at this
which is CAT5 cable you'll see that that clip is the correct size but look
how short the masonry nail is that it's not much use use at all. we've then got a
white one and that is the correct clip also for that cable but look at the
difference in length between the nail there is a massive difference between
the two it's probably two or three times longer so if you are using the Profix
nail plugs you are going to need the larger masonry nails and you may find
that when you remove the small masonry nails from there, that the larger one won't
actually go through without splitting it so if that's the case you can simply
take a small drill bit and that is a two millimeter one and you can actually do
this just by hand, you don't need the drill you can just twist that through
there and that will enlarge the hole sufficiently for a larger masonry nail you
can of course get different colored clips you can normally get gray ones
black ones or white ones if you do need to use the nail plugs you can simply
drill a five millimeter hole
tap the plugin you can then take the cable, push the clip onto it and you can
simply align that up and just tap the masonry nail into the plug and that
will give you a very good fixing so if you are buying cable clips it's often a
good idea to go in the shop and then you can see exactly which ones you are
buying obviously the ones with the really small masonry nails are not
much good at all. In this example I'm installing three CCTV cameras on the
side of this house you will notice that I have fed all three cables through a
disused overflow pipe which was redundant from when a new boiler was
installed all three cables run down and then have been fixed at a while using
cable cleats, wall plugs and external screws then the cables have been clipped
to the mortar course using the correct sized cable clips the overflow hole has
been sealed with clear sealant to prevent water ingress when fixing cables
to an external wall at height, it is critical that someone foots the ladder for you I
do know someone that died falling from a ladder so do not take any risks
sometimes it's possible to do vertical runs by fixing the cable to a down pipe
accessible using cable ties I hope this video has given you a few tips for when
you are installing cables if you found the video useful and you've not done so
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