Drilling into walls and wires

[GorgeousLadyofWrestling]

I don’t have a wire detector but really want to put some shelves up - we moved in in March and still have loads of boxes of books around.

I want to drill on this wall where there’s sockets at the skirting board level. I want to put three shelves in probably starting head height. Should I risk it? Is it likely there’s wires going up vertically? It’s not near the ceiling lights.

Should say this is party wall - so NDN’s living room is the other side of this wall.

Undo one of the sockets and see if the wiring does up the wall or down into the floorboards.

Turn the power off at the consumer unit before you try the above btw.

Btw - if you're not sure which fuse to switch off, plug a radio or lamp into the socket and turn it on. It'll go off when the power is switched off.

Cables should go vertically upwards from the socket, so you should be ok to drill either side of that vertical line.

*disclaimer - builders don't always follow these rules. My father once drilled into a wall and hit a cable. The drill shot out of his hands, his hair stood on end like it does in a cartoon and the house all fused.
He was lucky.

That’s an idea - thanks.

I hate DIY. It fills me with so much anxiety 😩

There’s three sockets though... a lot of space that they take up horizontally. Argh.

Chances are they go down especially if you have timber suspended floor, but as above good suggestion to turn off the power and look behind the face plates.