Burying a mains cable in the garden

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So 3 core SWA exists with at least three and possiblly four different color codes.

Red,Blue,Yellow: old 3 phase colors
Red,Black,Green/Yellow: pre 2004 single phase colors (not 100% sure on this one, I think it existed but my memory may be failing me and I can't find any photos right now)
Brown,Black,Green: harmonized single phase colors
Brown,Blue,Green/yellow: harmonized single phase colors
Other SWA colour combinationd can also be encountered. I have found all of these at some stage and I believe in UK:
Red, Black, Green; Old UK single phase.
Red, white, Blue; Old UK 3 phase.
Brown, Black, Black; Old European 3 phase.
Red, Yellow, Black. = Brown, Black, Blue.
Red, Red, Black = Brown, Brown, Blue.
Brown, Blue, Red; Old European single phase of LNE but I've found it used in UK as LNL. And on appliance 3C flexes.

Those in italics I've also found in 3C/3C&E
 
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Black White Green Found in demolished buildings that were almost certainly connected with American Military in the UK during WWII
 
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I have some (5- or 7-core, can't recall which) buried in my garden in which the cores are all (numbered) White.

Kind Regards, John
 
Black White Green Found in demolished buildings that were almost certainly connected with American Military in the UK during WWII
Yes those colours are still correct today. I did some work in an American owned server room in 1 Canada Square where the incoming supply to the area was converted to 115V 60Hz and there were serious arguements about wiring colours but the customer held firm and even had stickers printed referring to the 'Stupid Colours' wherever red and black were present.

However I'll say there's a slim chance of it being armoured cable as that's not prevalent in USA AFAIA. My own experiences of such wiring tends to be quite a lot of flexible metal conduit [they seem to like running big wires as a single in a conduit without consideration of eddy currents] or a round version of T&E.

Added to all of this, IMO a hell of a lot of their techniques are horrible. There always seems to be loads of excess wire and wire nuts in their vastly oversized back boxes.
 
I have some (5- or 7-core, can't recall which) buried in my garden in which the cores are all (numbered) White.

Kind Regards, John

Standard SWA, very commonly used for control signals in heavy industry.
 
You had to be able to strip enough back, to be able to see the printed numbers on the cores.

Or have enough confidence to trust the cable maker to have the kept the numbers is sequence around the cable from the Earth conductor. But then the question... was it clockwise or anti-clockwise. ( depends on which end of the cable you have )
 
One joint made... of course now I have to do one at the other end (d'oh), and SF haven't any in stock till next week.

Very impressed with the joint - only thing is the mixing of the resin. If you haven't done this before, it's in a 2-section plastic bag, and you activate it by squeezing the part with the accelerant in it *VERY* hard till an internal seal bursts, and the liquid squirts into the resin powder.

I had to kneel on the bag for it to burst :eek: and had visions of a faceful of accelerant... quite scary, as I applied my entire weight to it, till suddenly it gave with a loud bang...
 
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