cheapest outside socket?

[ady2°°4©]

as header where can i get a outdoor socket switched or unswitched it doesnt matter?

thanks

ady

[Mathew J. Newton]

You'd probably be hard pushed to find one *cheaper* than =A32.36 (inc. VAT/delivery) at Toolstation:

[Lurch]

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:10:15 GMT, "ady2°°4©" strung together this:

Don't know, I only buy decent materials.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. Since they are subjected to sunlight and frost, and require decent seals etc to be reliable, I'm not sure I'd buy on price alone.

[ady2°°4©]

ok then probably not the cheapest but a reasonable priced one around £5-£10 ???

[Mathew J. Newton]

I can vouch for the Clipsal range, having had one (unswitched) fitted for several years now. Available for =A38.99 from Screwfix -

[The Natural Philosopher]

Dunno. I have MK and they are really good so far.

[Stefek Zaba]

Ah, now we're getting reasonable ;-) The Clipsal range is pretty well built, and doesn't hit you with the silly prices of MK's Masterseal range.

Me, I settled on BS4343 "industrial" plugs and sockets for outside; single surface-mount sockets and plugs are surprisingly cheap - for examples see Screwfix 'Electrical -> Industrial Range'. Be sure to use the blue (240V) ones, not the yellow ones which by universal convention are for 110V working. They're reliably weatherproof, and can be wired with 2.5mmsq flex for long extensions. I've got these at a number of handy locations on the outside of the house and the garage, each controlled by an internal switch and fed from RCDs.

Electrically, though, there is an issue with just chopping off your moulded-on 13A plugs and fitting a 16A BS4343/"commando" plug: the 13A jobbies have an integral fuse, which protects the wimpy cable often fitted to garden appliances, pressure washers, and the like. I've approached this three different ways, depending on the appliance. For some with hefty, or short, cables, I've gone ahead with a simple unfused blue plug. ("Short" makes it reasonable as there aren't enough metres for the higher per-metre resistance to get a chap into earth-loop-impededance and flex-overheats-cos-too-long-before-the-fuse-pops problems). Secondly, on some of my appliances - strimmer, hedge trimmer come to mind - which came with long, relatively wimpy cables, I've fitted an inline 20mm fuse inside the 16A plug - RS partnum 234-4661 is my friend ;-) and there's a fair bit of room inside most 4343 plug bodies.

Thirdly, after swallowing hard and fitting a couple of rather pricey 'double' Commando sockets, I made up a board with a (pricey) double Masterseal 13A socket, a single and the last of my double Commando sockets, and a switched bulkhead lightfitting, with a few metres of

2.5mmsq finishing in a Commando plug. That lets me plug both 13A plugs and 16A plugs in, fed from whichever single Commando socket I'm close to, maybe at the end of one of my long 16A 2.5mmsq extenstions, so letting me use fused 13A plugs on things I might want to use both outside and inside or ones I just haven't got round to refitting with a 16A plug. I also made up a 16A-plug to twin-13A-trailing-socket adaptor: after all, I don't make a habit of using electrical appliances outdoors while it's actually *raining* ;-)

HTH - Stefek

[chris French]

Partly it depends on requirments.

on the house wall, partly protected from the elements by a carport, and just used for things like pressure washers, power tools etc. I have one (forget brand) that you have to lift the lid on to plug something in and doesn't stay sealed in use.

In the GH I used MK Masterseal as I have stuff plugged in semi permanently and these protect even when plugged it.

Hmm, bit to much of a faff about for me I think :-)