Workshop Electrics - Good Reference?

[pmakesp]

In the process of laying a concrete base for a 16x8 workshop which I will be ordering soon. Base consists of 50mm type1 sub-base and 100mm ready mixed concrete. I now want to sort out electrics to the workshop and stumbled across this website

'm aware that this is an American site but just wondered if it is accurate enough to follow for my own project (apart from the obvious power differences etc). My objective is to do as much as possible, e.g. sourcing all required materials, parts etc and laying the armoured cable etc - then contacting a qualified electrician to actually connect the circuit. Despite being technically minded and well skilled in IT - I am not confident enough to touch electrics and besides, I am unqualified anyway!. I intend to have a strip light and perhaps 4 double sockets for power tools etc.

Thanks John

[Andrew Gabriel]

It looks like something you might find in a pre WW-II book in the UK. No, we don't do it like that anymore.

There have been lots of threads in this newsgroup over the years on connecting up garages/sheds/greenhouses/etc to an electricity supply. Search back over them.

I would leave sourcing the parts to the electrician if you are not wiring it yourself. You could deg the trench in preparation.

[Dave Plowman]

Couldn't be bothered reading it all - I stopped at the bit about burying plastic conduit to take the cable.

[Andy Hall]

It says "electrical wiring systems". I would take that to mean fixed wiring installations.

Even worse then. .andy

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[Andy Hall]

If you include heating and air conditioning systems in the U.S. it adds up to over 100,000 fires.

There were 860 deaths in the U.S. and 97 deaths in the UK per year.

However you count it, the rate of problems is around an order of magnitude higher for a 5:1 population.

.andy

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[Andrew Gabriel]

I went along to a workshop in New York a few years ago which someone (may have been IEEE) organised. I was actually there for a Unix session which was a dead loss, but there were several others going on too, and one was about precisely this issue. I only sat in for an hour or so (wish I'd sat throught the whole thing now), but what I gleened was that US engineers are well aware of the appaling safety issues with US wiring installations compared with Europe, Australia, etc. Lots of stats were produced (ISTR deaths caused by electrical fires is the figure which is way above the equivalent per-capita figures for all other developed countries). Even electrocutions were slightly higher than most

220-240V countries (which is ironic as most people would assume quite the opposite, and I often see people say in newsgroups US 120V must be safer than 240V).

Anyway, I think the issue was that these engineers who were fully aware of the issue have no power to change anything, and are met with disbelief when trying to explain the problem to their government, trade bodies, and electrical equipment manufactures, who would rather things just stayed as they are.[*] Subsequently, I had a conversation about this with someone in the US electrical manufacturing industry. One thing that appears to be significantly different is people buying products based on safety/price. His comment was "no one will buy an outlet costing a dollar, because someone else makes one costing 60c." This is quite the opposite in the UK -- I would guess that the more expensive quality products such as MK and Crabtree have a very significant market share. Personally, I pretty well always buy MK, even though there will be a cheaper no-name equivalent on the shelf just next to it for 1/3rd of the price, and this is by no means uncommon. Anyway, this guy pointed out that his company do manufacture higher quality versions of many of their products, but generally these are only bought in Europe -- no market for them in the US. If anyone here who normally uses UK DIY store ever gets a chance to wander around the electrical section in a US equivalent store, you can see exactly what this chap is talking about.

• I've seen the same issues being raised by US lighting engineers about US vehicle lighting regs being 40 years behind Europe's, but the US government won't take any notice as the US vehicle manufactures don't want to have to redesign their 40 year old lighting systems.

[Andy Hall]

Yes, I've had very similar conversations.

I do the same and have been weeding out the original unnamed fittings that were installed in the house. I bought quite a lot for kitchen, conservatory and workshop use and sent lists to several electrical wholesalers for a quote. Significant discounts can be had on MK so although the prices are still a bit higher than unbranded stuff, it's not as bad as 3:1

I've had to use other manufacturer's products such as isolating switches from Schneider etc. for the workshop machines where MK didn't have a suitable product, but that is about all.

It really is horrendously poor crap and I am not surprised that it causes fires.

.andy

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