Cable in the garden

[Mike em]

Hi,

Looking for some advice.
I discovered today a cable in the garden which to my laymen's eye is not secured properly (see photo). We moved into that house last fall and it must have been like that for months and nothing has happened so probably it's either dormant or just switched off at the mains.
However, I was thinking if there is a quick and simple way to secure it?

Thanks in advance

 

[chivers67]

You have to determine if it's completely dead or live? It really needs to be completely disconnected at source as it could possibly still cause issues with your house installation by nuisance tripping an RCD. You could try to put some flexible conduit around it - preferably a bright colour and bury it at least 16 inches deep deep

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The first thing to do, is to find out if it might be a live cable. Do you have access to a known working volt-stick?

 

[Mike em]

It happens that actually have one of those volt sticks and confirmed that the cable is dead.

 

[winston1]

Those volt sticks are unreliable. That cable might not be dead.

 

[chivers67]

Test the Volt stick on a known live source test the cable and then test it again is my advice but it could still be connected somewhere, you need to try to discover where it leads to and remove it from whatever source it was fed from or is still fed from. A two pole tester and proving unit is a 100% method to prove it's dead though.

 

[SUNRAY]

Hi,

Looking for some advice.
I discovered today a cable in the garden which to my laymen's eye is not secured properly (see photo). We moved into that house last fall and it must have been like that for months and nothing has happened so probably it's either dormant or just switched off at the mains.
However, I was thinking if there is a quick and simple way to secure it?

Thanks in advance

What's actually connected there?
I believe I see the blue wire in the bottom cable going nowhere,
I can't tell the colour of the third wire in the bottom cable
I don't see a blue wire in the top cable,
I think the brown in the top cable stops short but it could be a shadow of the debris in the way.

 

[chivers67]

Looks like a piece of rubber type conduit that's been damages along with the cable being cut to me

 

[plugwash]

A two pole tester and proving unit is a 100% method to prove it's dead though.

A two pole tester will not tell you if *EVERYTHING* is live, volt sticks are actually better in that regard.

But more importantly, no test will tell you whether something will stay dead, it can only tell you whether something is dead at the time of test.

Testing for dead should be one layer of a layered defense against electric shock, it should not be regarded as a 100% solution. If the origin of the cable cannot be traced, I would avoid touching the conductors directly.

I would suggest the following to make the cable safe if it is believed to be dead, but it's origin can't be traced.

1. Clean up the outer sheath, some distance back from the damage.
2. Cut the cable with insulated cutters. Don't look at the cable while cutting.
3. Apply heatshink end caps to seal and insulate the cut ends.

 

[chivers67]

A two pole tester will not tell you if *EVERYTHING* is live, volt sticks are actually better in that regard.

I posted everything is Dead? I agree with everything else you posted

 

[plugwash]

The problem with a traditional two pole tester, is it only tests between conductors and it has a relatively low impedance. So if all the wires are live, or if one of the wires is live and all the others are floating then it will look like everything is dead.

It appears at least one manufacturer has added a single pole test feature to remedy this deficiency, but afaict such devices are currently still the exception not the rule.

 

[SUNRAY]

If I were testing that;
Initially check with voltstick/neon/LED screwdriver,
Using tester/2 probe check for voltages between conductors then between a known earth and conductors.

 

[plugwash]

Good idea on bringing out the known good earth and testing against it.

But still without a positive identification of where it was fed from I would only consider it to be "probablly dead", I suspect it's the remains of garden lighting and garden lighting may well be fed from things like timers or photocells.

 

[Mike13]

self amalgamating tape around each conductor would work, but you do need to dig back a bit to have some room to stretch the tape while winding on. If it is close enough to the house perhaps you could dig back along the cable to see where it goes?. I might just be a discarded length of scrap?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

If it is close enough to the house perhaps you could dig back along the cable to see where it goes?. I might just be a discarded length of scrap?

Rather than digging, if it is not too deep, a metal detector would help to trace the route and avoid the need to dig.