Power to outbuildings ?
 

Thinking of buying a workshop/shed type thing to go at the bottom of the garden about 100 feet away, has anybody done something like this and put power to it, whats the best way to run the power lines, was thinking of taking a spur from the fuse board and underground but how deep do I need to go and how do you sheild the cable, is it legal ?

I would dig a trench 18 inches to 24 inches deep, run electrical cable through standard ducting, you should have a seperate consumer unit with trip switch in the outbuilding, I would suggest a standard garage unit will do, available from all electrical outlets.

James

I'd use armoured cable for it if i were you.

As JSW says, go at least 18 inch deep (or at very least a minimum of 2 spade depths - ie so you'll never dig that deep).

It's also good practice to put a length of plastic cable tape about one spade deep above the line of the cable to remind you / warn anyone else who digs that there's a cable below.

John.

Definately use armoured and warning tape although I found it hard to get short length of tape as it seemed only to come in 100m rolls! Suggest you keep a plan of where cable is with house documents for future reference. Oh and BTW watch out for similar cables and drains when you are digging away! I suspect it is illegal as most things are these days.....
PS. Good time to plan for any outside lighting when you are messing about with power supply cable. DL

You can use either armoured calbe ot twin & earth (providing it is in a protective cover e.g.conduit) bury it at least 700mm down, the electric warning tape is pretty cheap IIRC but as said before you can only get 100m lengths.
As for protection, put a RCD on the feed from the main board this way it protects the stuff in the hut and the cable underground you'll ideally need a doouble pole isolator in the hut and your MCB's for what ever you've got in there, once again as said before this is available as a complete box from somebody like screwfix. If you are only going to have a coouple of lights and a double socket in the hut a 2.5mm supply will suffice.
One main thing EARTH EARTH and EARTH again and if your still not sure get a sparky to have a look at it for you, remember you can't see or smell electricity so be safe and sure of what your doing.

John.

Theres no need to go that deep in a garden, if you use SWA cable, go down about a spade and a half, or if you put it under a path, you needn't go that deep. An ordinary spade wouldn't go though the armour by just digging the garden, unless you do the weeding with a tractor.

as above- we have run armoured cable under the lawn for lights in the garedn...not gone that deep really.

T

There's a house round our way with a separate garage on the other side of a public footpath. Needless to say, they have power to the garage strung across at first-floor heigh. Surely this is against the regs?

Totally agree with the SWA cable, I purchase mine from tlc-direct.co.uk, you can buy it by the metre there.

As for 18 to 24 inches - well 18 inches is mentioned in the IEE regs but I wouldn't dig that deep, especially for over 100 feet!!!!

If you're going for just lights and a couple of sockets, I'd use 4mm square 3 core cable and come of the RCD protected side of your fuse board. If your fuse board doesn't have an RCD then it is good practice to use the plug in types or you could put a RCD based consumer unit in the shed and then runs the sockets and light from that.

J4CKO,
do you have a fence down the side of the garden??
If so, why not clip the cable to that??

Ron, Its a privet hedge about 10 feet high so no opportunities there as I would cut the cable every time I cut the hedge, I usually cut the one on the clippers anyway !

Cheers for all the info, was also thinking of putting the cable in a plastic drain pipe (buried so I could pull new cables through if needed ?

Good idea with a plastic drain pipe.

Just remember to leave a spare cable to pull in those extra future cables.