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Looking at installing 3 or 4 kW on our detached garage as it has the only suitable unshaded roof available. The Garage has a small consumer unit cabled in 6mm2 SWA back to house on a 32A MCB. This cable is something like 20m long. Does this sound OK when most of the load is in the house? The inverter would be in the garage of course.

Hi I need to provide power to 3 external buildings - a small flat and 2 barns - without the need for 3 separate SWA cables. In the main house, I already have a 100A 2 pole isolator switch between the meter and a Henley block. From the Henley block tails supply the power to the CU for the main house. I plan to have a 16mm2 SWA also from the same Henley block to feed power to the flat. In the flat, the SWA will enter a Henley block. From this Henley block, I will then have a feed to the CU of the flat and the other feed to the first barn. Same in the first barn where it has a Henly block and again 2 exits from it to the CU in the barn and the other providing a feed to the second barn. In the 2nd barn, the SWA simply goes directly to its CU. So, there is a "continuous" 16mm2 SWA cable that provides power to all 3 buildings with a feed into each CU per building from a Henley block (I have estimated the expected total load to be lower than 75A, which is the operating limit for 16mm2 underground). I would like to know if this sounds acceptable? I may even add an additional 2 pole isolator switch in each building to isolate each without affecting any other building downstream. The other query I have is earthing. The main house is a TN-C-S system. The flat is brick and the barns are wood (all on concrete bases). There is a water supply to the buildings and therefore 10mm2 bonding will be used. I assume it is fine to use an "exported PME" - to use the earth provided by the supplier (the earth in the house), rather than using a TT earth local to the buildings. Sorry if not clear, I can provide a drawing if required. Thanks Dave

The manufacturers of our digester has specified an IP66 rated RCD protected socket for the supply for the poo tank bubbler. The dedicated circuit planned for that supply (SWA 2.5, T+E, buried - 10 meters or so) is already RCBO protected. Do I also need RCD protection on the twin socket , or can I simply fit an IP66 socket in the knowledge that the circuit is already protected by the RCBO? I'd like to bury the SWA cable in the same trench that I dig for the poo tank pipe. Bet that's verboten innit?? Thanks in advance @ProDave or @JSHarris or @Onoff or anyone clever enough to know the answer ☺️

I have a 6mm2 cable direct from the consumer unit terminated in a box on the outside wall of the house (approx. 7m run in the house). In the future, I'd like to have a garden building approx. 10m from the house and run this electrical circuit to it. I have no plans of running anything particularly powerful in there. Approx. 15m further along I have a small garden shed that maybe in future a light or electrical supply might be handy. Although I've just missed my easiest chance to do something about it with a digger on site, I can still run a duct down the border without too much bother save a little digging. Then an electrician can run a cable through it in future. There shouldn't be any vehicles going over the duct but there might be in future. Occasional, not daily. I'm sure someone here will tell me what size SWA cable I should use for the total run, please do. I won't be doing anything electrical at the moment, just looking for a guide. What size twinwall duct should I be looking at for that cable? http://www.draindepot.co.uk/plastic-underground-ducting/electric-cable-ducting.html And what general practice should I follow? Depth? marking tape? corner radii? pulling strings? etc.

Can anyone recommend a device that is weatherproof for safely capping a 6mm2 SWA cable. This is a temporary measure.

Im looking to put a series of spike lights around the house approx 12 units and wondering how best/cost effective it will be to have so many joints. The supply will need to be swa cable as it will be underground and need a 3 way junction box at each fitting. The lights have a flex on them. I dont want juction boxs on show so intend to have them just underground (stone chip border between house and slabbed path)with the flex coming straigth down and into junction box. Can anyone say what junction boxs they would use for this and also if resin filled would be required. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks