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fitting a pattress |
Fitting a pattress is a little different than fitting a metal backbox and in most cases it is much easier as you can often just screw the pattress to the wall using screws and wall plugs.
| Before working on any electrical circuit you must ensure that it is isolated correctly and cannot accidentally be switched back on. Please read the article on safe isolation procedures before doing any electrical work. If you are not 100% certain what you are doing call a qualified electrician. Building regulations are changing all the time and modifying your home electrics could be against new rules and could invalidate your home insurance, if in doubt check first! |
Sometimes it is not practical to fit a metal accessory backbox and so it is often much easier to fit a pattress, often called a surface mounted back box. These are available in PVC and Plastic. The Plastic ones can be difficult to work with and often it requires practice if the patress needs cutting to be able to feed the cable into the box from the top or bottom.
If the wire is being fed from behind then you can simply tap out the specially weakened bits called knock outs with a screwdriver.
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One of the disadvantages of using a pattress is that it makes the accessory prone to knocking and impact damage as they stick out considerably. |
These are the easiest of all back boxes to fit and it is simply a matter of screwing the pattress to the wall using some suitable screws and fixings.
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Here you can see that this pattress is simply screwed to the wall and the wire is fed into the pattress from behind. |
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