Running power to 4 garages

[studentspark]

Running power to 4 garages
Each garage to have one double socket and a light so not a large load

Closest garage about 45 m furthest 80m

Problem is all four garages want to be metered separately, but running 4 separate swa cables will be a bit ugly along the side of the house and burying not easy.

I was thinking along the lines of one metered supply at source but metered at each garage.

Any thoughts on other ways to do this

 

[RF Lighting]

You're heading into a huge mine field! Not so much electrically, but it could get ugly if the neighbours ever have a fall out, or there are disputes over the bill!

If you have a meter in each garage, is the persson supplying the electricity going to be responsible for reading the sub meters, and arranging access to do so, or will it be done on trust?

Electrically, it's not that difficult, assuming the property supplying the garages can take the additional load.

Just run maybe a 40A supply out from the house. This will probably need something like a 16mm² cable to the first garage. At this point you could fit a joint, feed the garage with maybe a 6.0mm² cable, and carry on the supply to the next garage. You will be able to reduce the size of the main feed as the load gets lighter.

In each garage, fit a cutout and meter arangement just like the DNO do, and fit a 20A fuse to keep current useage reasonable.

You'll need to do some proper cable calcs to comfirm cable sizes etc. My figures are just guess work to give you an idea.

You could supply four meters located in the supply house from one 40A supply, and then run a 5 core SWA out to garages with a seperate metered supply on four of the wires, and a commoned neutral return.

Remember though the neutral will carry the sum current of each supply and would need to be sized apropriately, NOT like a three phase supply!

 

[big-all]

another point

is all the land on the wires route owned by them ??
as in no crossing the public highway

 

[bernardgreen]

Remember though the neutral will carry the sum current of each supply and would need to be sized apropriately, NOT like a three phase supply!

Motor start up currents in one garage will create a voltage drop along the common neutral that will dip the voltage to other garages. Probably not a serious problem unless voltage sensitive equipment is used in some of the garages.

 

[AndyPRK]

I reckon 4 cables!

Meters can't be cheap and all the hassle of reading them.