wrote in message
...

snip

From the experiences gathered thus far, it seems that nogginses - nassty,
sssneaky little nogginsses, what'sss it got between itss studsess, eh,
Preciousss? - seem to be common, but not universal; hence opining that
they were just one of the ways for Sod and Murphy to make their presence
felt on this job, but that a less expected bugger-factor might be their
preferred method of pain infliction instead...

Stefek

I've had hit and miss luck with nogginses. Dropped aerial cables, lighting
cables, even plastic conduit down full runs of the studs in both upstairs
and down in my place. Got away with it - no nogginses present (all lath &
plaster or ex-l&p-studwork-with-HA-developers-plasterboard-in-its-place).

Then, as you would put it, the minor deities S&M put me back in my place.

I was relocating my light switch to the other side of the door. All cables
run - last job is cut hole in L&P wall and pull up the final stretch of
cable, install switch.

Normally adding a socket or switch in L&P is a 5 minute job - pick a
location, make sure not on top of a stud, mark round dry lining box, drill
two holes in opposite corners, zip round with jigsaw, insert dry lining box,
wire up, done.

This time, I selected position at switch height (to match every other switch
in house, not the new low bregs position) slap bang in between the studs.
Nice deep dry lining box (45mm seems to be ideal for L&P). Started cutting
round the marked perimiter, and encountered surprising resistance from the
laths. Fine, I thought, just a bit springy because they're near the edge of
the door frame. Bugger me, when I remove the plaster and laths, I've sawn
2/3rds way through a noggin on both sides of the box. Arse. Still, worked
out better in a way because I was able to screw a nice shallow steel back
box onto the noggin, plaster it all in, and it was the perfect depth and a
lot more rigid than a dry lining box.

The impressive thing was that the jigsaw cut straight through it, albeit
with a little more resistance than expected. Didn't bend the blade or
anything (was using a full depth deWalt blade in it). Atlas Copco BXPE100XL
or whatever it's called. Lovely tool.....



--
Richard Sampson

email me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk