Drilled through a pipe... help!

[hazard 0]

Today whilst putting up shelves in my kitchen, I drilled through a pipe.... Luckily I didn't drill the entire way through. It was really soft metal and I just assumed it was maybe a bit of wood, or some brick behind the plaster. I should've looked. Ooops!

Spoke to my dad and he thought maybe it was a old electicity cable by the way I described it, but said I should get it check out or buy one of those screwdrivers that checks whether something is live or not. There were no sparks, but then I didn't cut through the copper cables, though I think I nipped ones of them as there is a small scratch on it.

The pipe is about 1cm wide and the copper cables (two of them) are perhaps the width of a matchstick.

I'm really concerned it might be live, can someone tell me what I should do. at the moment, I just have a bit of gaffa covering it!

Here's a picture.

[davius74 0]

as long as you havent cut the sheath of the cable right through to the copper strands it should be fine what colour are the cables

[hazard 0]

as long as you havent cut the sheath of the cable right through to the copper strands it should be fine what colour are the cables

Hi! Thanks for replying. Can you see the picture I added to my original post? There isn't any sort of sheath on the copper. It's literally a silver metal pipe with 2 bare copper wires in it.

[Rich 2]

I can tell you now, if you had bare copper wires, inside a pipe, and they were live, you would have known about it long ago...

Never has 2 bare seperate wires been put close together like this..

It looks like those cables in the hole have plastic sheathing on them, and possibly what you drilled through is a cable cover... All be it an inadequate looking one as moden ones are armoured to prevent drilling through them without extreme force...

Best thing might be to get an electrician to get it checked out..

Whats the fluff around the hole too? Looks like MDF..