warm doggies

[atm]

arh.. that all be it then.. thanks for the english reply..appreciate that..

this shed power is coming of a 62amp 3 phase board feed from one of the 3 main 60amp fuses at the front of the house..

i just need one live so just treat the shed installation as normal single phase supply..?

if this is the case i would use my 5% limit of the vdrop from the 400watt coming into house.. so 20amp mcb and 2.5mm SWA over 50meters should be ok? or am i getting a little ahead of myself?

 

[bsr]

OK, I think you might misunderstand!

A cable has an electrical resistance.

The thinner the copper, and the longer the cable, the higher the resistance.

The higher the resistance, the more of your electricity gets converted into heat in the cable instead of doing useful work at the shed end.

So, since you have a long cable, it needs to be a thicker one otherwise you will lose more than 5% of the electricity on the way from the house to the shed.

Why 5%? Because its the rules!

 

[AMEdinburgh]

I'm a vet and a DIYer, not an electrician!

If you're running 2x2000W heaters in your shed kennel you'll be spending the best part of 50p per hour or £12 per day £84 per week or £4368 pa and much of the heat will disappear upwards and be of no benefit to the dogs. Now, I know you wont be having it on every hour but the numbers are frightening.

Have you considered putting in an aluminium bed heater or two on an insulated floor.

Something like the Challoner http://www.challoner-marketing.com

You can get them with a reinforced cable if the dogs are chewers or you could do a hidden installation.

We have several at the surgery and I fitted one at home in the unheated understairs area in my house covered by the lino floor covering and with the wire under the floor into a fused spur (on rcd consumer unit) in an adjacent box skirting board. Worked well since 2005 and my little Vizsla loves it.

Alternatively, you could put in a mini electric underfloor heating kit building up the floor from the likes of screwfix which although will be more expensive you will recoup the cost very quickly.

If you're putting in underfloor heating, only provide part of the area so the dogs can move away if they're too hot, which could also be a problem with your radiant heaters. Dogs have a limited ability to dissipate excess heat as they have very little capacity to sweat and panting to evaporate water from the respiratory system is very inefficient and we do see fatalities in hot summer cars and groomers' drying cabinets.