Outside Shed Supply

[Tobester]

Are we breaking any laws if we run our own extension to an outside (brick) shed?

The cable will be buried 4 or 5 inches below the gravel of the path between the house and the shed, with a waterproof socket mounted internally in the shed.

In the house I'll just have a plug plugged into a socket in the kitchen.

I'll use uber-thick reinforced cable for it.

Thanks!

 

[sheslostcontrol]

Check your local code.. municode.com

My area (a county in Georgia) requires any electrical be buried 18" deep, and run in schedule 80 conduit.

 

[bigbadxenomorph]

what cable do i need

hi i need to run some armoured cable to my shed which has a kiln i've been told i need 60 amp cable but no one seems to know if it's 6mm armoured core or 10mm anyone got any ideas the kiln runs on 39 amps and the shed is about 25mtrs down the garden hence the 60 amp cable. i've phoned about 10 or 12 electicians from yellow pages and they wont even get back to me.
john

 

[simonB]

Regulations

Hi folks,

I'm in the UK.

I did a cable to a 3.75KW kiln, 25meters down to the end of the garden, under a trench.... but was maybe 5 or 6 years ago.
Hence, memory a bit foggy on the technical details just now.
If either of you are still watching this thread, and still interested, then I have some notes I could dig out ... just dont want to to that if you've long gone !
Just drop me a line.

Unfortunately, well, take this from wikipedia:
Under the new regulations, commencement of any work other than simple changes becomes notifiable to the local building control authority; "other than simple" in this context means any work in a kitchen or bathroom other than like-for-like replacement, work in other areas more than just adding extra lights or sockets to an existing circuit or meeting certain other criteria, such as outdoor wiring
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I thought that I'd save money by doing the wiring myself, and just getting an electircian to 'certify' my work afterwards.
It took me 6 electricians until I found one 'willing'.. and then he said he shouldn't really be certifying anything he hadn't laid himself. You see they have to see every inch of the cable to make sure it's not kinked/twisted/nipped etc etc ...
Eventually I got a cert for £150.

£150 when I did all the physical work ... if I did it again, I'd be asking for a quote for the sparky to do the whole job before I started .. quotes don't cost you anything, so it's worth asking.
While the sparky is looking around and yapping to you, he'll often drop you usefull bits of info for your consideration ... you soon realise there are factors you hadn't consdiered.
'Voltage Drop' for example !?

If you're like me, you HATE paying for someone else to do stuff you could do yourself.
However ... consider if you did have a fire. If someone did get electricuted/burnt.
Your home insurance ... would it cover your DIY electric wiring ?
How much is your house worth ?
What would you do if it burnt down and you got no payout ?
What is the penalty for burning your neighbour to death, even if accicdental ?
Sounds dramamatic ... but it does happen (or used to happen ... hence why they now have regulations!)

I hate burocracy as much as the next ... but this modern world !
Ask a sparky to quote, ask yourself if it's really worth the 'relatively' small saving?

I now want to move up to a larger kiln.
My electricity supply won't manage a bigger kiln so I'm going to LPG.
I priced up the parts for the gas lines, around £50.
Now I'm faced with paying a Gas Engineer £200 just to make sure my home insurance is not invalidated.
Unfair, unsporting ?? My god it sure is.

But I only have 1 house. If I lose it ... I'll still owe a mortgage for the next 20 years, and have nowhere to live.
The thought is not worth thinking about ......