Wiring question

[Ajax123]

Hi all

newbie to this forum but hoping for some informal advice. I'm looking at building a log cabin in my garden to be used for residential. I need to go through planning and building regs etc and fully intend to get a proper spark in to do the electrics when the time comes but wanted to ask.

i intend to have lights, sockets an electric cooker and an electric water heater so if I was doing a normal house I would expect 4 circuits.

I want ant to run the electrics for the cabin from the household wiring assuming there is a spare fuse on the consumer unit. My thoughts were run a 16mm cable from a spare fuse in the house (assuming it's available) to a new unit in the cabin and distribute the power to the 4circuits from there. However thinking about it I am not sure if I need all 4 running from separate fuses on the consumer unit. Need to know for my own costing as I have not bought the house in question yet.

I also want want to install 3 outside units to run caravan electrics. Do these come from the same fuse or do these also have to go through a separate circuit?

Thanks in anticipation

alan

 

[amlu]

Leave consumer unit in the house alone, split the tails with a henley block, install a switch-fuse and connect the outgoing cable into that.
Be warned that its not a DIY job and sparks will fly if done incorrectly, get electrician to do it.

 

[Ajax123]

It's deffo a "get a man in" job as I will need buildings regs signed off properly. Sounds reasonably straight forward though. Thanks for the response.

 

[Ajax123]

Just another quick question. If the house has outside electrics already, which it does to a garage and a stable block would you expect the tails to be split already. I'm going to have a look at the place tomorrow and just want to get a feel for how well or correctly some of the work has been done. The building side I have no issues with and simple electrics I can cope with but I gather outside electrics is a little more complicated.

 

[Leesparkykent]

Just another quick question. If the house has outside electrics already, which it does to a garage and a stable block would you expect the tails to be split already. I'm going to have a look at the place tomorrow and just want to get a feel for how well or correctly some of the work has been done. The building side I have no issues with and simple electrics I can cope with but I gather outside electrics is a little more complicated.

Not necessarily.

 

[Richard Burns]

In the majority of cases, where there is little demand for power, the outside circuits will be fed from the house consumer unit.
For a stable there should be careful consideration of how the power is connected and the earthing arrangements as animals are more susceptible to potential differences, so one would hope that the supply has been split for the stable at least.

A separate circuit from the consumer unit would be inappropriate for the uses that you intend, especially with your requiring supplies to caravans which is a whole different ball game of complexity and is separately covered in the wiring regulations.

I would suggest that the easiest way to find out how the outside power is supplied would be to look at the house consumer unit and incomer and see if there are split tails or a separate circuit for outside power.
You will be able to identify major shoddy work but some work can appear to look OK but on further investigation or testing the work is found to be abysmal.
Do not expect that the outside power will be straightforward!