Wall Chasing for Concealed Wiring & Pipes
Process and Crack-Free Patching (2026)

What wall chasing is, and why it matters

Concealed wiring and piping look clean because the conduits and pipes sit inside the wall instead of on its surface. To get them there, the wall is cut with a groove, called a chase, the conduit or pipe is fixed into it, and the groove is filled and plastered over. It is one of the dustiest and noisiest parts of a renovation, and one of the most common sources of cracks that appear in new paint a few months later.

Chasing is part of first fix. ClickBina's guide to electrical first fix and second fix explains where it sits in the order of works: after the layout is fixed, before plastering, tiling and ceilings close.

Plan the routes before anyone cuts

Most chasing problems are planning problems. Before the first cut, the positions of every socket, switch, light point, aircon point and tap should be marked on the wall and agreed. Once the positions are fixed, the routes follow a few simple rules:

• Run chases straight up or down, or straight across, from the point they serve. Diagonal chases are hard to predict later and easy to drill into.
• Keep horizontal runs to a minimum and at a consistent, recorded height.
• Group cables into one chase where you can, rather than cutting several parallel grooves close together.
• Keep electrical and water chases apart, and never run them in the same groove.
• Record or sketch the routes before plastering, with measurements from a corner, and keep the record with the house documents.

A route record matters more than most owners think. The next person to hang a TV or a cabinet will drill into that wall, and a nail through a hidden cable or pipe is a much bigger job than the chase ever was.

Where you should not chase

Not every wall can take a chase. Reinforced concrete beams, columns and slabs carry the building, and cutting into them can expose or cut the steel inside. ClickBina's wall hacking guide explains how to tell a load-bearing wall from a partition, and in a strata building the management's renovation rules usually forbid cutting into structural elements.

How the chase should be cut

A proper chase is cut, not hacked. A wall chaser, a twin-blade cutter with dust extraction, cuts two clean parallel lines, and the core between them is removed with a chisel. The result is a neat groove the right size for the conduit. Hacking a groove out with a hammer and chisel alone shakes the wall, breaks off more plaster than needed and leaves a ragged hole that takes much more filling.

The chase should be only as deep and wide as the conduit or pipe needs plus room for a good covering of mortar. Cutting too deep weakens the wall; cutting too shallow leaves the conduit so close to the surface that the plaster over it cracks.

Dust, noise and the neighbours

Chasing is loud and very dusty. Before it starts, cover or remove furniture, seal doors to rooms that are not being worked on, protect the aircon indoor units, and cover floor traps and drains so debris does not wash into the pipes. Dust extraction on the chaser helps a great deal.

In a condo, chasing counts as noisy work, so it has to fit the management's permitted hours, and neighbours on the other side of a shared wall will hear every cut. ClickBina's guide to adding power points also compares concealed and surface wiring for smaller jobs where chasing is more disruption than it is worth.

Fixing the conduit or pipe in the chase

Cables should run inside conduit, not be buried loose in plaster, so they can be replaced later without cutting the wall again. The conduit or pipe is fixed firmly into the chase with clips or mortar dabs so it does not move while the chase is filled. Water pipes are pressure-tested before they are covered; wiring is checked for continuity. Once the chase is closed, a fault inside it means cutting the wall again.

Filling the chase without cracks

ClickBina's guide to patching walls before repainting explains the most common failure: a chase filled too thick in one go, or allowed to dry too fast, cracks along its length later. The fix is in the method:

1. Dampen the chase and fill it with mortar in layers, not in one thick pass.
2. Let each layer set before the next, and keep the fill from drying out too quickly.
3. Bed a strip of mesh over the chase, wider than the groove, so the plaster bridges the joint between old and new.
4. Skim a wider band over the chase, or the whole wall, rather than a narrow strip that shows as a line under paint.
5. Let it cure fully, then sand, spot-prime and paint the whole wall.

When surface trunking is the better choice

Concealed is not always right. Surface trunking or casing is quicker, quieter, needs no patching and is easy to change later. It makes sense for a single extra socket, for a rental unit, on concrete columns and beams that cannot be chased, and in a condo where noisy work is limited. ClickBina's guide to boxing up aircon trunking shows how surface runs can be made neat.

What the work usually costs

Chasing is rarely priced on its own; it sits inside the wiring or plumbing price, with the patching and repaint as separate lines. These are ClickBina's published figures (indicative 2026, Klang Valley).

Ask the quote to say who fills and skims the chases and who repaints the affected walls. Those are the lines most often left out.

How ClickBina can help

WhatsApp us your job details for a quote: the property type, which rooms need new points or pipes, and whether the walls are brick, block or board. ClickBina is an experienced KL & Selangor contractor for whole-house refurbishment and trade coordination, so the chasing, the wiring or plumbing, the filling and the repaint can be sequenced as one job. We reply within the hour, and the price we agree is a flat price with no hidden charges. A site visit is RM150, waived if you go ahead.

Sources & methodology

• ClickBina electrical first fix and second fix guide — where chasing sits in the order of works, and the wiring point price.
• ClickBina patching walls guide — why long chases crack, and the touch-up repaint price.
• ClickBina wall hacking and house rewiring guides — structural walls, and the full rewire price.

How we estimated prices: every RM figure on this page is quoted unchanged from the ClickBina guides named above; they are indicative Klang Valley ranges for 2026.