You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Need to run an armoured cable to a summerhouse and trying to think of the easiest way to bury the cable under the lawn.
The consumer unit is at the opposite side of the house to where the summerhouse is going. So thinking I'd run the cable along the outside of the house (2 walls) then bury the last 20 meters under the lawn. Or could bury it the entire way but that's about 35 meters.
Any ideas on the easiest method to bury it?
I got a mole company to do mine, digging a 0.6x 20, let alone 35m trench by hand will not be fun.
Falling getting it moled, hire a mini digger.
<p style="text-align: left;">We do a lot.of mole ploughing at work (fibre cables) - we have a small pedestrian operated thing called a Ditch Witch. If you can find a contractor with one they are great for gardens and paddocks where a bigger machine won't fit.</p>
it really won't take that long with a decent trenching spade, and a decent work out.
Easiest would be rent a walk behind trencher, can get a little one for about £100 for a day. Obviously depends where you are with time/money etc.
I can't even get a normal shovel into the ground with my weight so manual digging won't be fun.
You can get 'exterior' cat5/6 cable for not too much to avoid having to bury it deep, or not even bury it at all.
^ not a reccomendation, just an example from a quick search.
You'd obviously have to place it in such a way that it's unobtrusive and unlikley to get smashed up from general gardening, but if it's terminated correctly at each end, if it does get dammaged you can just pull it out and put a new one in.
EDIT.. ah your talking about a mains cable... sorry, ignore me.
pick and elbow grease, if you cut the turf off the top in a few months you'll never know the ground was disturbed
You can get ‘exterior’ cat5/6 cable for not too much to avoid having to bury it deep, or not even bury it at all.
Just looking to get power to the summer house, not ethernet.
Don't forget to lay warning tape over the cable too
Just looking to get power to the summer house, not ethernet.
Same principal applies though surely? as long as the cable/sheath is suitably robust?
I’d have thought some thick-walled plastic tube, or scaffold poles, use a spade to prize up a trench deep enough to lay the tube in, then stomp the ground flat on top; then it’s easy to just shove the cable through without worrying about damage being caused by regular gardening. If something does happen to the cable, it’s easy to disconnect at each end, drag it out and replace with new cable.
I’ve just thought of something else, just down the road from me there’s a green with a low divider along the footpath, made of concrete posts with a hole at the top, and long steel tubes with a collar that the tubes fit into, with grub screws to hold everything in place.
I guess the tubes are about 3cm diameter, and are pretty robust, probably the same as handrail poles. Saves having to fanny around digging deep trenches, just jam the spade in as deep as possible and lever the soil and grass up, lay the pipe, bang it down.
Ditch witch if you’re not worried about cost. Otherwise use one of these.
https://www.wickes.co.uk/Roughneck-Handle-Trenching-Shovel---48inch/p/176478
<p style="text-align: left;">There’s no easy way unless you pay someone else to do it. Make sure it’s done properly! SWA terminated correctly! Warning tape and don’t skimp on the depth.</p>
I'd use a pick/mattock. Great for digging a thin trench. It doesn't need to very wide at all.
As above, digging a 0.5m x 20m trench by hand won’t be a lot of fun, and depending on what your soil type is will dictate how little fun it is. Went straight for the mini digger option when did similar for my workshop as our garden is mainly clay. Filling the trench back in by hand was hard enough, digging it out would have broken me. It’s less than an hours work for a mini digger, find some one local for a cash in hand job at the end of a day
I’d use a pick/mattock. Great for digging a thin trench. It doesn’t need to very wide at all.
Same, mattocks are ace and if you get the technique right it's relatively light work.
Trenching spade to around 750mm. Cover with stones and plastic warning tape then fill in.
[img] 
[/img]
If the soil's not stoney it might be easier than you think - just did this for EV charger on sunday, trenching spade to about 450mm deep, 19m long, only a few hours.Would have taken me longer to source digger and work out how to use it.
Electrician was fine with this depth under lawn, put warning tape over when backfilling. He said groundworkers were quoting clients too much for similar jobs and making installation unaffordable.
Easiest would be rent a walk behind trencher, can get a little one for about £100 for a day. Obviously depends where you are with time/money etc.
Was going to be my suggestion. Will be much quicker than anything a mini digger is a overkill
I can’t even get a normal shovel into the ground with my weight so manual digging won’t be fun.
Wrong tool, you use a shovel for moving dirt and spade for digging and if the ground is not well disturbed it's probably easiest to use a mattock to loosen the soil fist then a trenching spade. The long handle ones work well with a crank in the neck.
0.5m x 20m trench
Why the hell would you digg a trench 0.5 m wide for some swa? Your not laying a gas main.
0.5 m wide for some swa?
Deep.
0.5m deep