Armoured Cable

[Woody5]

Hi,

 

We’re having a new drive laid and our consumer box is in this location. It would be silly of us not to run a cable now underground to the back of our garden. 
 

In future we are wanting to power a workshop and some outdoor lights. Will a single armoured cable be enough? As in can you power lights now and then some time down the line can I use the same cable to power this future workshop? 
 

Run from box to outbuilding is roughly 30m so was wondering what size cable to use? 
 

Thank you in advance.

[Carrerahill]

35 minutes ago, Woody5 said:

Hi,

 

We’re having a new drive laid and our consumer box is in this location. It would be silly of us not to run a cable now underground to the back of our garden. 
 

In future we are wanting to power a workshop and some outdoor lights. Will a single armoured cable be enough? As in can you power lights now and then some time down the line can I use the same cable to power this future workshop? 
 

Run from box to outbuilding is roughly 30m so was wondering what size cable to use? 
 

Thank you in advance.

I'd run a 10mm 2 core SWA (you can use 3 core if you want and use a core as earth but the armour on a 10mm² cable is of greater cross section than the core will be therefore compliant).

 

That can be put onto a 50A or 63A supply no bother which will let you run more or less anything you want out there.

 

I even have the cable calcs sitting around me somewhere as I ran them for a garden office my parents are building at the moment and they have a 28m run from house consumer unit to new office consumer unit and I based that supply on general small power, electric water and space heating. 

 

People can sometimes get carried away with power supplies to garages and things and say you need 80A services and things, however I always point out your whole house will only be on a 100A fuse maybe even 80A in some cases yet they want to export nearly 80% (or 100%) of this to a garage/workshop!

 

 

[Wil]

Electrician should be able to help you size it if you know how heavy your ‘workshop’ loads will be. A single armoured is fine if it’s big enough. Obviously the lights will then need to be back from from the workshop…

 

You’d have more flexibility if you installed the cable for the lights in a duct with a decent draw wire to your future workshop position and then pulled a new armoured through as and when needed. Save you putting a potentially big cable in the ground now which might not suit your requirements.

 

 

[Carrerahill]

52 minutes ago, Woody5 said:

Hi,

 

We’re having a new drive laid and our consumer box is in this location. It would be silly of us not to run a cable now underground to the back of our garden. 
 

In future we are wanting to power a workshop and some outdoor lights. Will a single armoured cable be enough? As in can you power lights now and then some time down the line can I use the same cable to power this future workshop? 
 

Run from box to outbuilding is roughly 30m so was wondering what size cable to use? 
 

Thank you in advance.

If you tell me what your planning on installing in your workshop, I can do you a cable calc and quick written "design".

[Woody5]

11 hours ago, Carrerahill said:

If you tell me what your planning on installing in your workshop, I can do you a cable calc and quick written "design".

Thank you. I will likely have a bandsaw, bench drill, planer  and table saw. All of them will be 230/240v. Will need some led strip lights and some outside garden lights. 
 

 

[Conor]

This is how I did it for my brewshed. Quite often had a a couple 3kw boilers and lighting going.

 

We had an external socket at the back of the house that was on a small 30amp ring. I basically extended this loop out with two lengths of 3 core 6mm SWA. Once in the shed, I had a few double sockets on the loop and a 3amp fused spur for the LED lighting. Worked perfectly.