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morning. currently have building work going on (well waiting on a brick layer....)
several trenches onsite where water, gas and drains have been replaced. they have been loosely refilled. and a big hole in the internal floor waiting to be concreted
just been thinking now might be a good time to run some cable for external lighting and maybe powered gates. ready to be connected by a spark in the future.
run is around 10m. if i want to power lights and the gate, should I do 2 runs of cable back to the house? both armoured 2.5mm 3 core?
and should I run it inside some ducting in case of future maintenence?
any issue with using the water supply trench it's way deeper than 500mm
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I’ve got 4 core armoured to all of my outside areas, no trunking. So I have earth, neutral, perm live & 2 separate switched lives for lights etc.
just been thinking now might be a good time to run some cable for external lighting and maybe powered gates. ready to be connected by a spark in the future.
Would've been better to have thought this before the digging started...
How about laying the trunking with some rope/string inside now and just pull cable through later if/ when needed?
If anything like me you'll lay cables and will be wrong ones when time comes.
Put it in ducting to protect it from excess ground water (the S in SWA 🙂 ) 10m shouldn't be a problem, but be careful about avoiding damage to the plastic SWA sheath as you pull it through
Get rid of sharp stones, etc, that might pierce anything, hopefully the water pipe will be similarly prepped
Don't pull the cable rigidly straight, a bit of a natural "wiggle" is quite normal and useful. You could leave a rope in the duct permanently too for later jobs
Infill with sand to protect from sharps again. Yellow warning tape on top then gradually work soil in as you go higher
I can't see why different plastic pipes can't be mixed in the trench, BUT I'm not sure whether it needs its own trench. Please check
Trench depth and protection will vary with expected use, a ploughed field will need more and deeper.
@theartistformerlyknownasstr will have useful insight I think
Thanks guys, whether it needs its own trench or not is what I can’t seem to find online
I have some conduit left over from a ufh job, would this stuff be okay? Problem I see is it is ridged so might hamper the running of cable
This stuff https://www.screwfix.com/p/jg-speedfit-15blk-con-25c-conduit-pipe-15mm-x-25m-black/72840
And yes having thought of this before the trench was backfilled would have been nice, but I didn’t really get a chance to think through absolutely everything. I was busy worrying about the fact my drains were shagged and the 1950s extension appears to have been built on a patio….
As far as I can tell there doesn’t appear to be any regulations for using conduit underground if buried to sufficient depth, however it seems like a really good idea.
At some point in the future this area will have a driveway over the top so not easily accessible
15mm diameter? I'd be going bigger than that EDIT you'll struggle to get one cable in that. When you buy the SWA ask for some suitable Twin Walled Cable Duct, ridged outer, smooth inner
I'd go with something like this. (The french use flexible conduit extensively, red for electric)
I buried a load of 38mm conduit when the garden was ripped up 15 years ago, most of it has been pressed into use. I got it free from a mate though.
Most of the runs needed extending a bit, but it was minor work to add a metre at each end to get it to exactly where it needed to be. Rather than digging a 20m trench.
One runs to the garage, one to the deck, one to the shed, one has a water pipe in it (to a tap that was a on a tree, it's now on a wall.) there are two left to use.
Thanks guys it does seem a really good idea to run a decent sized conduit now. Just need to find out if using the water trench is okay or not! I’d prefer to use that than the drains trench due to location
Do you know who'll be signing the electrickery in the extension off? Ask them what they'd want to see, they might as well sign that off as well
Builder is arranging spark so don’t know them yet, we are at ground work phase so wouldn’t expect them to be on site for a bit.
I wasn’t planning on actually wiring up in the garden till much later, maybe next summer. New driveway and gates are on the nice to haves list and very likely will drop off this part of the project having discovered we need to do a bit of underpinning due to insufficient foundations