Spending my annual “2 weeks in the sun” decorating a 210 year old living room in Manchester this year. Yay.

I need to chase out quote a lot of plaster to run cables for a TV and speakers.

What is the best, and lease distressing for me and the house, method of doing this?

Buy a chaser, two cutting blades with adjustable width. Run up the wall then tap out the middle bit.

Mine is this one:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb293wch-150mm-1700w-electric-wall-chaser-230-240v/80530

NB In an old house it will be a very messy job, our house is Victorian and the plaster just turns into a fine dust which goes everywhere….

There’s going to be dust, a hell of a lot of dust. Unless you fancy spending the whole of the two weeks with a bolster chisel and hammer.

The cheap Titan SDS drill off of there Screwfix did the job well enough when I did our kitchen last year.

Wall chaser and a good shop vac.

Hold the conduit on the wall & pencil mark a line down each side.
Get a drill with a 5mm bit & a depth gauge & drill all the way down the pencil lines at about 3″ centres (or a bit less than the width of your bolster).
Go down the line of holes with a club hammer & (sharp) bolster to cut a line through the drill holes – most of the plaster / masonry will then come away.
Tidy up the chese with your bolster from each side of the chase.

If you drill the holes you will keep the chase tidy, if you just bolster the line chances are a lot more plaster will come off the wall, especially in an old house!

Above assumes it is a masonry wall with plaster finish – if lathe & plaster on timber then you can dothe same, but don’t drill as deep & don’t wack as hard with your bolster!

Angle grinder to cut two parallel cuts then chisel out the middle – messy tho. Proper tool as above is best tho. I have done it with a hatchet – quicker than a chisel, not much dust but leaves a ragged hole

I feel your pain, I’m currently midway through a refurb of our hallway, and have discovered that the wiring for the lounge lightswitch and lights wasn’t run in the lounge when that was decorated, oh no, they drilled through the walls and ran it in the hallway when they did a really shonkey job decorating that.

And the stairs aren’t properly attached, and there was a tonne of random old lighting wires just in the plaster that I stripped off.

Anyone know a decent joiner in Nottingham?

DUST! DUST! DUST! DUST! DUST!

I had to cut through a concrete block wall in our last house to make a new doorway. I taped a few sheets of clear plastic ‘dust sheets’ to the wall above and made a kind of ‘tent’ to work in. It didn’t stop all the dust but meant the vast majority was kept in the tent. Use a breathing mask of some kind when in the tent though. I had goggle and a snorkel fitted to a length of hose pipe to get clean air in. Look like a **** but it worked remarkably well.

Oh yes & get a pump up garden pressure sprayer that can spay a fine mist.
Keep spraying this around & will keep the dust down.

You can do a full height chase in about 15 mins with my method.

I had goggle and a snorkel fitted to a length of hose pipe to get clean air in. Look like a **** but it worked remarkably well.

you CANNOT say that and then not post pics

You’ve got to love the WCA ‘common sense’approach to Elfin safety👍👍
I’d go with water spray with any method not too much with mains power tools ffp3 dust mask if available or snorkel but get and post photos enjoy the weekend

As much as I love a new tool I think the suggestion to buy a one trick pony tool for a couple of cable chases for a wall mounted telly is extreme

I’d grind it and run the sds chisel up it.

If I had a whole house to do….I’d end up pricing it at the hire place and then work out that it’s 20 quid more to own it.

Thanks.

Going to use an angle grinder and chisel. Bought a respirator mask too as I’m bringing down a 4.2 x 7.2 m ceiling that has been there since 1810, so I’m expecting some dust.

SDS drill with rotation stop and a channel cutting bit. Boom. Drill will get a lot of reuse and the only specific thing is the channel bit.

Dust is less of an issue if your walls are packed with straw, like our 1979 Wimpey house is.

Tradesmen who haven’t worked on the estate never believe us when we warn them, and then like to take photos to show their mates…..

’m bringing down a 4.2 x 7.2 m ceiling that has been there since 1810, so I’m expecting some dust.

However much dust you’re expecting, multiply it by a factor of 10.

Also, expect it all to let go at once and prepare accordingly.

You can’t escape the dust. You can contain 90% to the work room by closing the door but even taping round it some dust escapes. I’ve seen a sparky use a chaser, I’ve used an angle grinder… And I’ve gone back to chain drilling then chiseling. The ragedy line doesn’t matter as you’ll make good again with plaster. It’s a fraction slower but not loads, it makes lots of dust but slightly less then the grinder and chaser. Once holes drilled use a bolster in an sds+ drill (hammer only clearly) to link up and then a chasing chisel to remove the middle bit. In my experience things like plaster depth boxes and conduit never are. I always need to take some brickwork to.

I only had 30 year old plaster, but I found I could score through it with several passes of a Stanley knife, then bolster out between, which was much less dust than angle grinder or chain drilling. But it depends how thick the plaster is; if you have to chase into the brick that won’t work, obviously.

All the above have some merit.
Using a 9″ grinder , I chopped out a door sized hole in the living room.
I made a polythene Walter White meth lab type cleanroom area to work in , and it kinda half worked.
I was filthy.

Neighbours weren’t happy , but it was a lot easier for me to turn their telly down.

As Greybeard …. Less violence = less dust.
It’s a time calculation too.
Initially , a spinny Grindy Chasey thing will be dead quick, but you’ll spend ages cleaning up ,everywhere.
Behind the cooker.
Inside drawers.
Everywhere.
In a book , on a shelf , opened years later.
There it is.

Stanley knives / bolsters / damping down / cleaning as you go , will take about the same , overall.

Unless you have loads to do.
Then go mad.

SDS percussion drills are handy.
Won’t be as messy as a grinder.

FWIW , ( which saves time typing ” for what it’s worth”), I dotted and dabbed the living room, sacrificing about an inch all round.
You can easily run your cables under the plasterboard, and sink socket boxes in.

Or any of the other suggestions .
Just do what you want ?
It’ll be ok , just try to be confident , and if it’s not perfect , it doesn’t matter.
You created that mess.
It’s yours.
You own it.

Unless you are flipping properties.
Get the pros in .
Really.
Think of the return.

Talking of percussion, the drums on REM’s Pretty Pursuasion are just ace.

Was just on .
The speakers appear to hang on the wall , as the cables are buried in the plasterboard.
In my deepest dreams , the entire speaker is buried .

And the neighbours , too.

It’s all connected guys.

The LP has finished.
Back to the Phillip Pullman.

Tim.

I’ve used one of those double blade chasers.

NEVER. ****. AGAIN.

Our entire ground floor was getting wrecked (bar the kitchen) and was basically a shell. Muggins had the job of chasing the new sockets and stuff, even a foot or so for each socket created an apocalyptic amount of dust. Never mind the noise. Ours is black brick and the worst ever. P3 kept me breathing but needed goggles as well.

Then I still had to cut the middle with the SDS anyway.

Neighbours haven’t spoken to me since. Made up for years of their kids tantrums and knackered washing machine. Was worth it.

If I was doing it again I’d just take a hand saw of some sort to the plaster, scrape it off then chain drill any brick with a decent bit (I like the Bosch multi bits) and either SDS or bolster to the rest.

I borrowed these off a sparky friend, left almost no dust and took no time at all. If you can find somewhere to rent them from it would be a few quid well spent.

https://www.hilti.co.uk/c/CLS_POWER_TOOLS_7124/CLS_DIAMOND_CUTTING_SLITTING_TOOLS_7124/CLS_SLITTING_TOOLS_7124/r1740?itemCode=312265

https://www.hilti.co.uk/c/CLS_DUST_MGMT_VACUUM_CLEAN_7125/CLS_VACUUM_CLEANERS_ACCESSORIES_7125/CLS_VACUUM_CLEANERS_7125/r8949957?itemCode=2203108

I used a grinder and bolster. Very pleased when I got out of the dust cloud, and happily the dust sheets has done the trick and the next room was clean.

Until I went to the next room later on. The draught had pulled the dust through the floor boards and back into another room that had no carpet down. Absolutely everything including the bed covered in fine plaster dust!

Update:

Did it all by hand with a bolster chisel to avoid too much mess. Got a few blisters and a right arm like Martina Navratilova, but the mess was contained and relatively easy to tidy up.

The plasterer is over-boarding our knackered old ceiling as he suggested that pulling down something that has been up for 210 years would be a very bad thing.

We did it last night with a grinder and a flat bit on the sds. Took about 20 mins to do the whole kitchen.

Boxes were in and bonding was in after another 30 mins.

Plasterers here to skim on Wednesday.

It took me 4 days!

This thread is well timed as I’m about to chase out for a wall mounted tv (power, HDMI, cat 5, RG6 aerial)

In terms of filling the hole once the cables are in and capped….is it a pro plasterer job or can a diy’er get a decent finish? I’m happy to pay a pro but want to get it finished so I can decorate and doing it myself will be quicker.

Ive done them with club hammer/chisels more recently with an SDS drill but if I had a lot to do I would stump up for the proper tool that @footflaps suggested. Dont mess around with a hammer you will spend so much extra time that could be used doing something else.

In terms of filling the hole once the cables are in and capped….is it a pro plasterer job or can a diy’er get a decent finish?

If you use something like easifil then its a pretty easy job. A couple of thin layers to build it up. You can sand it back to smooth it so you don’t need much skill when applying it.

After watching an electrician on Youtube using a triple blade Metabo with a decent matching Dust extractor, then that’s what i would look to hire ( as siad above , its a bit expensive for a one trick pony unless you use it everyday). It makes the full channel in one go, no having to chisel out the centre with an SDS and very little mess on the stuff he was cutting.

Been there.