Some guidance on rewiring a garage/workshop

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I have inherited a bit of an electrical mess in the Garage/Workshop behind my house and am getting around to sorting it out.

It's currently wired with a plastic CU (broken and held together with gaffa tape) and then everything else wired with T&E in plastic conduit up and down the walls and exposed along the rafters. My concern is that due to storage of "stuff" in the roof space the exposed T&E gets more abuse than the wiring in conduit on the walls.

Anyway, what I really want to ask is what is the "best practice" for this sort of installation?

I am (slightly) tempted to re-do the whole thing in SWA but that's going to be expensive and take me forever (I am happy to work with it but not exactly swift). Is this overkill?

Failing that, should I re-do the plastic conduit throughout (this time so it is attached properly) and just pull singles? Is plastic trunking robust enough in this type of application?

Any thoughts appreciated!
 
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You'll likely get some varying opinions on this, but personally I'd go with wiring the whole workshop with conduit and pulling singles.

SWA will be more expensive and much more time consuming to install for anything but just a couple of odd sockets and a light, and is not really necessary for the average domestic garage/workshop. Although not a primary consideration in a workshop, it's also harder to keep it looking reasonably neat if you start having parallel runs.

Again, no doubt some will disagree, but in my opinion plastic trunking for this sort of job is a waste of time. It will end up taking as much time to cut, install, and fit T&E cables as it would to erect round PVC conduit and pull singles, and the result won't be as good.
 
Thanks for the info...

Seems that SWA is out then - I'm not unhappy about that :)

My plan was to use 20mm round plastic conduit throughout.

Just to add - car restoration etc. is my (reasonably serious) hobby. It's a big brick-built space and is actually quite heavily used. There's a compressor and all sorts in there, so I'm quite keen on it being "proper".
 
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Just to add - car restoration etc. is my (reasonably serious) hobby.
So you enjoy (most of the time - been there myself had the spells of frustrated anger) working with your hands, and are good with tools.

Add in what you're keen on and it points to one thing:

Steel conduit.

Get a decent quality die set (FAIK you might only need the actual cutter), some cutting compound, and start looking on eBay for a s/h Hilmor bending machine - they come up all the time, but location is the issue, because collection is the only thing that makes sense.
 
I quite fancy the idea of steel conduit (more tools to buy!!) but I was under the impression that it took quite a bit of practice to get good at putting the bends in the right place?

Found a bender just up the road... a GL model. Is 40 quid reasonable?
 
I quite fancy the idea of steel conduit (more tools to buy!!)
:mrgreen:


but I was under the impression that it took quite a bit of practice to get good at putting the bends in the right place?
Probably does for the more complicated ones.

Still - think of the satisfaction of learning a new skill.


Found a bender just up the road... a GL model. Is 40 quid reasonable?
The floorstanding one, not the GL Minor?
 
but I was under the impression that it took quite a bit of practice to get good at putting the bends in the right place?
Probably does for the more complicated ones.
Still - think of the satisfaction of learning a new skill.
In my experience, a skill not much more difficult to learn than the corresponding one in relation to copper plumbing pipe - and if you happen to already be good at getting bends in the right place with copper pipe, you're already well on the way. Furthermore, one tries to avoid 'complicated bends' as much as possible with conduit, since they are not necessarily all that conducive with getting the cables through! (Water does not mind going around complicated bends too much!!)

Kind Regards, John.
 
Yep - floorstanding. Looks a bit manky..
It does indeed - looks like it's been left out in the rain.

You'd need new former(s) - he's got the copper plumbing pipe sizes.

Still - as long as the basic item is sound, not falling apart or jammed up with rust...
 
Personally I like to run a 2x2 trunking round the garage just below ceiling level, with 20mm conduit drops every time you want a socket etc.

Whether you decide to use PVC or steel is up to you, but using trunking means you just have straight drops with no bends.
 

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