Armoured Cabling

[archipelego]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to run some armoured cable from the main consumer unit in the house, down to a new smaller garage unit.

The armoured cable will supply both a summer house and a garage, running off 3 fuses : a 5amp fuse for outside lighting, a 16amp fuse for the summer house and a 16amp fuse for the garage.

The summer house has a 400watt underfloor heating system, a few sockets (for running a radio, TV, lamp etc) and a ceiling light. The garage will have a ceiling light and a couple of sockets (for running DIY tools such as drills, angle gringer, chop saw etc).

What I'm wondering is, what core armoured cable would you recommend. I can't figure out if I should be looking at 4mm or 6mm.

Thanks for any advice.
Jon

 

[JohnW2]

Jon, I think that if you need to ask this question, you really should probably be engaging the services of an electrician. Quite apart from the question of your ability to do the work, I presume that what you are talking about would be 'new circuits' as far as the house consumer unit is concerned. That would make this 'notifiable' work, which means that it might even be cost-effective to employ a 'self-certifying' electrician, rather than do the work yourself and having to pay (sometimes exorbitant) Local Authority notification fees.

Kind Regards, John

 

[flameport]

What I'm wondering is, what core armoured cable would you recommend.

Depends on the length of cable required, the maximum load of the various things which will be connected to it, the earthing system in your house, the earthing system you intend to use in the garage, and to a lesser extent how the cable will be installed.

 

[securespark]

As flame says, a lot of it down to voltage drop. How much current you want to draw and how long the cable will be.

 

[archipelego]

The cable length will be about 20 metres.

I don't intend to do the termination myself. I'll be getting a sparky in to do that. it'll be part of a job to replace the consumer unit in the house. It's not a new circuit, but will replace an old cable which currently runs on a catenary over the garden to the garage.

Ill just be running the cable myself from the house to the shed, mounting it etc to Save some money on labour.

 

[Simon35]

The cable length will be about 20 metres.

I don't intend to do the termination myself. I'll be getting a sparky in to do that. it'll be part of a job to replace the consumer unit in the house. It's not a new circuit, but will replace an old cable which currently runs on a catenary over the garden to the garage.

Ill just be running the cable myself from the house to the shed, mounting it etc to Save some money on labour.

Doesn't work that way. The electrician signing the paperwork at the end should be the one who designed the installation at the start. Get one on board now. Get them to specify how they want the cable installed and tell them you will be doing the trench digging and backfilling to reduce costs.

Assuming you're burying it, run it in some proper ducting and put some extra ducts in for future proofing as well.