My mains cable into the house from the road is the old lead sheath cable with an earth clamp around it. Is it ok to use a twin and earth cable for a garage supply cable and to use the earth of this cable as the garage earth and to also add an earth stake in the garage ?
Garage supply
- Thread starter jaguar1
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It sounds like a TN-S type PILC or something - this belongs to your DNO so isn't yours to touch - you wouldn't connect directly to this cable anyway.
In the interest of safety, I'm thinking you'd be better employing a sparky.
In the interest of safety, I'm thinking you'd be better employing a sparky.
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I meant can i run a t&e cable suitably protected in a plastic conduit and use the earth of the t&e cable as the earth return path for the garage , i was only trying to explain what the Mains cable into the house was . The garage supply cable would be in a seperate way in the house consumer unit with a rcbo , i know the rcbo may trip instead of the rcd in the garage consumer unit but i also want to protect the garage supply cable as well.
As it is detached, how is the cable from the house going to run to the garage? All on the surface or is any of it going to be underground?
If so, SWA is about the best thing to use.
As for earthing, the CPC for the circuit is adequate as there are no extraneous conductive parts.
If so, SWA is about the best thing to use.
As for earthing, the CPC for the circuit is adequate as there are no extraneous conductive parts.
Why would you want to do that? There seems little point in mixing earthing arrangements. Probably best to simply export the existing earth from the house. You certainly don't want to be mixing the TN-S earth with a local earth electrode at the garage, otherwise you may find that the CSA of the CPC in your supply cable is too small to take fault currents that could potentially arise due to problems in the distributors network. This is especially true should the main supply to the house ever be converted to TN-C-S.
You cannot bury T+E outdoors in plastic conduit as it does not provide sufficient mechanical protection to prevent someone, for example, digging through the cable with a spade. It would, however, be acceptable to run T+E in plastic conduit on a wall into the garage - as the garage is detached, this seems impossible. You would be much better off running in SWA as already advised.
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