Garden Workshop

[MartinWaller]

Hello, I have a new garden workshop in which I need power. I have already installed (fixed to the wall) four fluorescent light tubes and a Volex Garage Consumer Unit with RCD and two MCB 6Amp and 16Amp. I then asked for quotes to connect it all up and was staggard by the costs. Consequently I'm going to wire it up myself. I'm happy with the wiring but I have some questions regarding routing the cable.

The workshop is made of 2 by 4 wood with a weatherboard exterior. The lighting circuit I was going to route on top of the horizontal ceiling joists probably in plastic 20mm conduit as I am sure that the roof space will end up being using to store wood etc.

As for the ring main I can't decide whether to come down to socket level and then route around the shed, drilling a whole in each upright and threading the cable through or route the cable around the roof space dropping down to each socket as necessary. I don't like the idea of drilling all the wholes in the uprights as it will weaken the wood ? Again I'd probably use 20mm conduit.

Are there any rules about whether ring main cables should come down from above or come up from below ?

Once the cables are in I'd like to put up plaster board to finish the whole thing off.

Many thanks

Martin

 

[Adam_151]

I take it that you're planning on discarding the 16A MCB in order to install a 32A one for your ringmain?

Plastic conduit for the lighting sounds fine to me, I'd probably use SWA for the sockets in a workshop though, and as for cable routing, if the cables are going to be burried in a wall then they either need to be in permitted zones (basically strictly horzontal or vertical from accesories, though there are some other zones at the edges of the wall), be in earthed metal conduit, or be 50mm below the finished surface.

What cable are you using for the submain?