I need to rewire some old wooden stables. Is it acceptable practice to mount sockets and lights directly onto wood (ie combustible surfaces)? If not, what material should I use to mount them on?
Many thanks.
If they will still be housing animals, then there is a complete section in the IEE regs concerning electric installations on Farms etc.
Dave
All modern surface-mount fixtures, whether plastic or metalclad, themselves form the required non-combistible enclosure; so mounting on wood is OK. For a use of an old stable as workshop/living space, that's about it: if workshop in non-managment-consultant sense, metalclad fittings and cables/singles run in plastic conduit probably makes more sense than surface-run ordinary PVC T&E (unless you can arrange the T&E to run in places it's unlikely to get knocked).
If there's livestock involved, you need to pay extra attention to reducing touch voltages in the event of fault - in practice this means supplementary bonding, shorter runs of "normal" cable or extra CPCs running in parallel, RCDs, and the like: combination of hosses allegedly being more sensitive to shock, not wearing socks + plastic-soled shoes, and standing on floors with a relatively low earth resistance all conspire to make this (a) sensible and (b) Required.
HTH - Stefek
More than that, you DO need to measure the voltage gradient around earth spikes, when there is a fault, more than 25V can cause problems, it is a long way between front and back hoofs on a bull!
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