The Essential Guide to Wall Chasing in Luxury Home Renovations
- Rory McGinnity
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
When walking through a newly renovated luxury home, it’s often what you don’t see that makes the strongest impression. Floating vanities illuminated by subtle LED backlighting, sleek wall-mounted brass tapware, and mounted smart TVs without a single dangling cable all create an effortlessly clean aesthetic.
How do renovation teams achieve this seamless look in solid, double-brick homes? The answer lies in an essential structural trade process known as wall chasing.
What is Wall Chasing?
Wall chasing is the technical process of cutting precise, narrow channels—known as "chases"—directly into solid masonry, rendered brickwork, or concrete walls.
In timber-frame or drywall construction, plumbers and electricians can easily thread pipes and wiring through hollow wall cavities. However, in traditional solid brick construction, there are no hollow gaps. To install modern services inside the wall rather than mounting them on the surface, trades must carve out channels directly into the brick structure itself.
What Does Wall Chasing Hide?
Without wall chasing, modern plumbing and electrical upgrades would require unsightly surface-mounted conduits, exposed pipes, or bulky boxing-in that eats into your room’s square footage.
Wall chasing neatly conceals:
Concealed Plumbing Lines: Copper supply pipes for wall-mounted basin taps, overhead rain shower heads, thermostatic mixing valves, and undermount laundry taps.
Drainage & Waste Pipes: In-wall waste pipes for wall-hung toilets and integrated vanity basins.
Electrical Conduits & Cabling: Wiring for power outlets, light switches, backlit LED mirrors, heated towel rails, and architectural wall sconces.
AV & Smart Home Cabling: HDMI cables, ethernet lines, speaker wiring, and smart home automation hubs hidden behind wall-mounted displays.
How Wall Chasing is Done: A Step-by-Step Process
Executing clean wall chases requires heavy-duty equipment, technical skill, and careful structural planning.
1. Precision Layout & Scanning
Before any cutting begins, the design plan is marked directly onto the rendered walls. Trades run digital scanners over the brickwork to locate existing live electrical lines or concealed water pipes to ensure safety.
2. Cutting the Channels
Trades use twin-blade diamond wall chasers fitted with high-powered dust extraction systems. The double blades make two parallel cuts through the brickwork to an exact, predetermined depth—typically between 20mm and 40mm, depending on whether electrical conduit or copper plumbing is being installed.
3. Chiseled Extraction
Once the outer lines are cut, the brick material between the two slits is carefully chiseled out using an electric rotary hammer, leaving a neat, square-bottomed trench in the wall.
4. Service Installation & Fixing
Electricians and plumbers lay heavy-duty PVC conduits or insulated copper pipes deep into the channel, securing them firmly in place with specialized pipe clips or masonry anchors.
5. Patching and Rendering
Finally, the chase is filled with high-strength cement mortar or specialized rapid-set render. Once cured, the wall surface is finished perfectly flat—ready for waterproofing membranes, smooth plastering, or direct tile application.
Why Master Craftsmanship Matters
While wall chasing might look like straightforward demolition work, it requires absolute trade precision. Cut too shallow, and the services will sit proud of the brick, preventing tilers or plasterers from achieving a flat finish. Cut too recklessly or too deep, and you risk compromising the structural integrity of the brickwork or damaging adjoining rooms.
When investing in a high-end home transformation across Perth’s Western Suburbs—from Mount Claremont and Subiaco to Nedlands and Fremantle—getting the hidden infrastructure right is just as crucial as the final cosmetic touches.
At Elite Makeovers, our fully project-managed trade teams execute every structural detail with mathematical precision, ensuring your home looks effortlessly pristine for decades to come.
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