Setting up electrical equipment on a market stall

Hello folks, I confess I'm not a spark or trainee and I'm just hoping for a bit of advice, if you can help me .

I'm setting up a food market stall on the high street, to be housed in a small marquee. I shall be taking electricity from the high street supply, located under small manhole covers with the blue, round 3 pin outdoor sockets. It's 230v.

I wish to run two tea urns, each 1500w, and two griddles, each 1200w (I don't know that they'll all pull at the same time but it's certainly possible). They have standard 3 pin domestic plugs.

The manhole covers probably will not be covered by the marquee, so cables will run across pavement, how far will be variable but shouldn't be more than 5-8m.

So I'm thinking I'll get two splitter/adaptors, each connected to one high street mains plug and putting 2700w on each (puts me at 11.7 amps per). I'll be putting RCD protection on each.

Are there any other relevant things I should be thinking about? Construction, routing, keeping everything dry and safe and ways to do that? I imagine on site work some of the issues I'll face come up there too, so I'm hoping someone might be able to give me "do this" or "don't do that".

Any advice much appreciated, thank you .

Welcome to the forum

You need to discuss your requirements with the council, you don't give detail of the allowance, its quite possible the outlets may be on a ring so regardless of plugging different points, it may be the case you are loading up the circuit too much which may effect not only yourself but other stalls if you overload the system.

Yes , speak to the council.
Our(small) local market has a similar set up, but the set up is arranged that the supply runs behind the stalls. There are no cables laid in the public area.

Hi,
BS 7909 is your friend. You can't just run cables across pavements, think wheelchairs...

Or these even.

If you are using 16A (round blue plugs) to 13A adaptors then make sure they either have only a single 13A socket, or if the have multiple sockets that there is a 13A fuse in the socket.

I would also be looking at putting my own RCDs in if i was in your position, I wouldn't just trust to the protection installed for the sockets unless I could inspect it and see test records.
CPC do an inline IP rated RCD product for fitting to flexible cables, we keep a stock of them with 16A in and out connectors for this sort of job.

The best thing for covering cables in my experience is tough rubber matting or carpet.
But your first option should always be keeping the cables out of the way of everyone (public and staff)
Also the type of cable is important, BS7909 is quite specific about using H07-RNF type flex and not pvc or Arctic (the bright blue/yellow/orange stuff)

Thank you all for replies .

I should have said the cables should be out of the way, not in public thoroughfare. My main thought is rain and water and what's the best thing to do.

Sadly, the council is sodding useless. The idiot I spoke to told me it's 110v, and I nearly went out buying equipment rated at that. It's not, it's 230v - I physically checked the outlets myself. The only other instruction I got from them was "get liability insurance and you can trade". They do not know the first thing about power requirements, amazing. If I trip stuff I shall point the finger squarely at them, because I've been asking the questions.

I shall look at that BS thing, thank you, and I shall put some inline RCD.

Any other thoughts about wet weather with this stuff?

millsaw said:

Thank you all for replies .

I should have said the cables should be out of the way, not in public thoroughfare. My main thought is rain and water and what's the best thing to do.

Sadly, the council is sodding useless. The idiot I spoke to told me it's 110v, and I nearly went out buying equipment rated at that. It's not, it's 230v - I physically checked the outlets myself. The only other instruction I got from them was "get liability insurance and you can trade". They do not know the first thing about power requirements, amazing. If I trip stuff I shall point the finger squarely at them, because I've been asking the questions.

I shall look at that BS thing, thank you, and I shall put some inline RCD.

Any other thoughts about wet weather with this stuff?

Click to expand...

One reason for using the blue commando lugs rather than normal plugs is that they have a degree of water resistance, assuming they are correctly fitted and maintained.

You are right that the councils don't have a clue generally,

A quick question for Davesparks - is there merit in this type of situation in buying one of those plug in socket testers and using it daily before plugging in any equipment to check that all wiring and connections are correct before starting work?