Garage: power sockets

[bruce_phipps]

Just bought a 1970s house. Seems the previous owner did some electrical DIY work...

The garage (3 yards from the house) has its own lighting and a power socket.

The previous owner seems to have connected a cable at the fuse box inside the house, run the cable out through an air brick in the side of the house, then enters a plastic tube which presumably goes under the garden to emerge in the garage, where a socket has been installed and lighting circuit spurred off this.

This all looks a bit dodgy...

• Don't I need an RCD in this lot? What if water leaks in through the (flat) garage roof? Or the underground cable is cut by a shovel?

• Cables in the garage are not in trunking. Surely, at the very least they require plastic trunking to provide a bit more protection against the possibility of water ingress.

• The main cable emerging from the air brick looks very dodgy. There is about 4 inches of cable exposed before it enters the plastic tube.

• Connecting an extra mains circuit into the fuse box. Is this legal? Is this advisable?

Bruce

[Andy Hall]

If the sockets etc. could be used for portable equipment out of doors then it should be. You could have an RCD in the consumer unit in the house, or put a small consumer unit in the garage and have one in that.

The plastic tube and ordinary cable idea is not acceptable. It should be replaced with steel wire armoured (SWA) cable. This is pretty cheap to buy.

Not a requirement, but not a bad idea either.

It should all be replaced with SWA. Then put a small garage consumer unit in the garage end.

It shouldn't just be connected into an existing fuse/circuit breaker, but should have a dedicated one of its own.

As of 1st January you have two options for undertaking electrical work of this nature:

- DIY it and submit a building notice to the local authority building control under part P of the Building Regulations.

- Find an electrical contractor registered with NICEIC or another approved organisation, who can do the work and self certify it.

[Fred]

There is another:

Leave it as it is? Isn't that what part P is all about?

[Roger]

The message from "Fred" contains these words:

Don't forget the 4th option - do what you want and neglect to tell the BCO (not that any of us would recommend that of course).

[Lurch]

On 7 Jan 2005 02:53:48 -0800, bruce [e-mail] strung together this:

Yes.

Something might go bang, though it depends how wet it gets if it leaks. You could say the same for your house.

More than likely to go bang!

Nope, recommended but required. Not sure how the trunking will stop water ingress though.

Not ideal, but certainly not dangerous by any means.

Yes.

From the questions I would summise that you are not all that with it re: electrics. If you're worried get an electrician out to it.

[Peter Ashby]

Aren't I glad I shorted the standard internal cable that ran to the garage over the gate last year? Then it was legal for me to replace it with SWA for the run out through the air brick to the garage consumer unit. So now I have to pay for someone to sign off work to make the system safer and up to spec.

For the record the garage has it's own fuse and the power runs to a garage CU, pity they didn't at least use trunking to protect the cable from uv light.

Peter