Fitting a new socket in a garage

[Stw1954]

Hi,

I want to install a new socket in my garage. All that's in there at the moment is a light, the electricity meter, and a fuse box.

Where do I begin?

 

[andy]

Hi,

I want to install a new socket in my garage. All that's in there at the moment is a light, the electricity meter, and a fuse box.

Where do I begin?

by gettin some cable, socket and backbox!

search for adding spurs etc for what to do (basically, just take a feed from CU as spur from ring )

 

[Steve]

Very easy. Can you take a picture of the fusebox and meter? If you feel confident enough, turn the fusebox off, and open it up and show that too.

 

[Stw1954]

D'uh! How do I attach a picture?

 

[RF Lighting]

You will need to use an image hosting site such as Photobucket

Upload the image to their site, then copy the line of text below the picture that begins with

 

[Stw1954]

Hope this works:

 

[JohnD]

Clean and neat but too old. That brown Wylex fusebox is way past its use-by date and overdue for replacement (sorry). It does not have enough capacity for today's needs; it has no provision for RCD protection; and the rewirable fuses are discouraged. The main switch may be rated at only 60Amp, which is rather low. The earthing cables looks to my eye to be undersized and could do with upgrading when you are doing any elctrical work) it should go to the water main and gas mains where they enter your property)

You need to identify the fuseways and label them - if I were to guess, I would say you seem to have two lighting circuits going into the single 5A fuse; an immersion heater; one socket ring, possibly a cooker radial or a shower.

It would be possible to put a single socket on a spur to the socket fuse; or else, connect a 13A FCU on a spur, and as many sockets as you like downstream of it, but with a total connected load of 13A max at any one time.

One extra point The brown Wylex may have exposed brass terminals on the main switch, which are live even when you have turned the switch off. You can recognise these switches by seeing that the big meter tails go into the top of it, and you could see and touch the brass terminals and the cable retaining screws (no plastic cover on them). This makes it dangerous to work on, especially if you are not used to this kind of work.

 

[Stw1954]

Thanks for your advice - I think I'll get an electrician in!

 

[Pensdown]

One of the fuse ways must feed 2 circuits by the look of it?

1 x 6mm, 2 x 2.5mm & 3 x 1.5mm?

 

[Steve]

When was the last time old brown wylexes were fitted? The building and the rest of the installation looks fairly new.

 

[JohnD]

When was the last time old brown wylexes were fitted? The building and the rest of the installation looks fairly new.

I fitted my first Wylex in about 1976, and they were cream by then, the brown ones must be even older. By that time it was usual to fit separate circuits for upstairs and downstairs rings and lights, and leave a spare way for a cooker and immersion even if you didn't have them, so 6-way was the smallest normally used.

Could it possibly have been a self-build by an old codger who had that one in his shed?

 

[JohnD]

Thanks for your advice - I think I'll get an electrician in!

Wise move! Try to get a personal recommendation of someone local; when phoning, ask if he is a member of a self certification scheme, and which one. If he says no; or, it doesn't matter; or, no-one will find out, choose another.

 

[securespark]

That board dates from 1958, with the brown case and wooden pattress. However, the intake is PME, the earliest of which I've seen has been 1967. I may be wrong, please feel free to correct those dates!

As someone said, the cream ones came in the 70's. So, by that quick reckoning, I date the installation somewhere between 1967-1975 ISH.............

 

[RF Lighting]

There looks to be some bonding leaving the board, and all the cables look 'reasonably new', and are fixed with plastic clips rather than the old style zinc wraparound type. It might be that the house has been rewired but the old fusebox retained (strange, but not impossible) or as John said it may have been an old box someone had

 

[plugwash]

yeah when my dad rewired this house about 20 years ago he left the old fusebox in place (it has since been replaced when we had our extension built).

most diyers wouldn't want to break rec seals or touch meter tails (and DIY books tell them categorically not to) but the whole of the rest of a rewire isn't really that hard to DIY (once you've done one pendant and one ring socket the rest are just more of the same).