TheRecklessEngineer Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 I have found myself with a pretty solid outhouse that I am planning on turning into a workshop, and I need a little advice on wiring.... Currently there is no electricity in the building, however, there is a small stringy (32A ish?) bit of wire coming from the main house into the next door barn - this is fed into an 63A rated RCD and then drives 2 sockets and some lights. For the moment this is the only electricity I have access to. The main house is going to be rewired in the not too distant future, and this will include a larger gauge cable, probably direct to by workshop (if I get my way ) So I have the task of wiring a workshop from scratch. I have a fair idea of how it should be done, but there are a few little bits that are bugging me: For the moment, my feed is going to be coming from the stringy bit of cable from next door - should I take it upstream or downstream from the RCD? Chances are there is no RCD or MCB in the house - just good old fashioned fuses... I'm planning on having 4 or 5 sockets in the workshop what rating cable should I use? Should I run upstairs sockets from the same RCD on the distribution board as downstairs sockets? RCD rating? As above, but with lights.... If I end up digging a trench with new cable in it to the house, I'm guessing I need to use some sort of special cable - what should it be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRecklessEngineer Posted November 14, 2008 Author Share Posted November 14, 2008 Well, after a quick trawl through the part P building regs, it seems that I need to notify my local council and get it all commissioned by someone qualified...in which case I may as well just get them to do it in the first place.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivan Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 They only say commissioned by someone qualified. In which case you could save yourself some money by wiring it up yourself and getting a qualified person to check it. For power points you need 2.5MM Twin and Earth wired up in a ring main. For lighting you can either use 1MM twin and earth or 1.5MM twin and earth. Personally I would run the upstairs as one ring main and the downstairs as another. The cable to lay underground needs to be Steel Wire Armoured and either 4MM wires or 6Mm wires. HTH Ivan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobtail4x4 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 Yup I am a BCO, for some reason we need to look at your wiring, we only look at the layout and chopping through joists etc, anything more technical we let our sparkie check things, as said you can lay the wires and fix the boxes, just get a qualified sparks to connect and test everything, another case of a few numpties doing DIY badly affecting everyone else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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