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Is a 44mm hockey stick enough for a 35mm2 cable?


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Mains cables are quite stiff and will come off a coil with a bend.

Is it straight forward to get them through a hockey stick from the trench into a kiosk?

 

I looked at a similar kiosk nearby and it had ordinary 110mm drain pipes sticking out. UKPower (UKP) must have been ok with that.

44mm dia of an official duct worries me.

 

We have to put in two, one for UKP in, and another for our cable out.  Into our property I could use any pipe I expect., or even none?

 

It will be a 5 core , 3 phase cable plus a separate earth. 35mm2 cores.

I can't find what outer size the cable is.

 

I'm asking because we have to lay a cable and build a kiosk. Later UK Power will do their bit and then our electrician. UKP have given us until November.

Because it is a 40m run over the neighbour's land  we have to do it now, and don't want to waste money on a 40m duct.

 

OR we could fiddle the hockey stick over the cable first and cast it into the kiosk base. seems fiddly.

 

The question at last.....

 

So in what order should we do this?

trench, cable, backfill, base with ducts, kiosk, push/pull cable into kiosk.?

Trench, cable, duct onto cable, base with duct and cable already in place,  kiosk, backfill?

 

and what ducts ?

 

OR any better suggestions please?

 

 I am allowing 2m spare into the kiosk. Wasteful I know but better than being told it is short. That will be coiled up until UKP have done their bit.

 

BTW as previously discussed, we are getting the 35mm2 cable you all suggested, and as now confirmed by the electrician. Plus he wants a bigger kiosk than UKP minimum, because it is very tight in there. After lots of searching, thinking there must be a  standard mass-produced one, at last I found it for £550 all-up.  Most websites are a shambles and finding sizes and prices is difficult. How so many companies make a living doing them slower for double the price I don't know. The local Electricians' merchants says he can't get near the £600 I suggested was the target.

 

 

 

 

 

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I used a 100 mil smooth wall  duct with a draw rope And it was still a lot of pulling to get a 25 mil cable an separate earth through 

No chance with a hockey stick 

image.thumb.png.3ac400d65e11f67f0f01f4d1760ce040.png

Edited by nod
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7 minutes ago, nod said:

No chance with a hockey stick 

Yet they are specified for the purpose and sold accordingly. 38mm for single phase and 44mm for 3 phase.

My worry is that they turn up and say 'that isn't a hockey stick' and scarper.

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I’ve a hockey stick coming in But there   Supply cable is only 10 mil 
My electrician mate had specified 30 mil and said I may struggle with that hence the separate earth and did point out that they won’t care what comes from the house 

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37 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Yet they are specified for the purpose and sold accordingly. 38mm for single phase and 44mm for 3 phase.

My worry is that they turn up and say 'that isn't a hockey stick' and scarper.

Just checking I’d put a 70 mil duct in not 100 

man’s a standard red electrical duct 

Exspcting a 10 mil cable right into the house 

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I used a 44mm hockey stick for 35mmSWA cable. It fitted but it was hard work. 
 

If it’s into a kiosk the guys won’t care if it’s a hockey stick or the smoothwall flexible electrical ducting. 
 

I put an extra hockey stick into my kiosk just in case I had a need to run something else into it. 
 

 

Edited by Kelvin
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3 hours ago, Kelvin said:

It fitted but it was hard work. 

So I could slide it on the end then position it for the slab pour? 

The flexi sounds favourite but isn't what the spec requires.

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 If you have the cable on-site that will be easier. Just keep in mind the cable is very unwieldy. The issue we had was I put the kiosk in when the plot was still a field so just had the service cable from the pole and nothing else. I made up a template out of a sheet of plastic board marking the holes where the ducts came through the bottom of the kiosk. 
 

The spec I got from SSEN had a duct to put in the trench I couldn’t buy anywhere. When the guys came to fit the service cable they basically said as long as it’s black 😂 

 

I had a temp CU and some sockets fitted to get us power on-site. 

 

7F68673C-1121-4596-8E3F-12CFEAABAF8B.thumb.jpeg.5680292fa13a0754f39dc8a809be0e43.jpegIMG_6450.jpeg.e27bddf327e09bc3f92d5edf8a1e3a79.jpeg

Edited by Kelvin
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3 hours ago, Kelvin said:

the service cable from the pole and nothing else.

we are the opposite. we have to get our cable across the vendor's land by a deadline, and the kiosk built.  So we will have a  kiosk and our cable dangling inside it for a while and then get UKPN in. Or do we get our stuff wired up into the garage first?  Decisions. 

 

The supply comes from a nearby pole and through a duct that the vendor (and neighbour) has had installed already.  It doesn't quite reach the kiosk position and I have no idea if it is intact and appropriate.

So I think we are best leaving an open trench behind the kiosk between it ( and our duct)  and the existing duct.

 

Your photos are really helpful and I may use them to show the groundworker if you don't mind.

 

@Kelvin  The 44mm hockey-sticks look just  about ample there. What size of cable do you have?

 

We will have 4 core 35mm2 SWA and a 16mm2 earth.   Do you think an extra duct for the earth is prudent?

 

 

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Anyone know what, if any, are the rules (guidelines?) re positioning of kiosk?

 

Can it be anywhere on site or does it have to be within a certain distance to the front of site?

 

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2 minutes ago, mjc55 said:

the rules (guidelines?) re positioning of kiosk?

It will be site specific.

UKPN will meet you on site to discuss. In our case it had to be within a radius of the power pole. 

It might equally be from a cable in the road. Then they don't want it vulnerable to vehicle impact .

A real person will advise on site.

I can't remember the distance (30m?)  but beyond that it became a major project and cost and timescale jumped dramatically.

Within it , it could go to kiosk or direct into the building.

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The cable from the kiosk to the house is 35mm2. I’ll take a picture and post it shortly. 
 

Have you been asked to provide your own earth? I generally add extra ducting just because it’s hard to add it afterwards. 

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4 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

Have you been asked to provide your own earth? I

The electrician said he preferred 4 core SWA and a separate earth.

UKPN need one entry. We need One but will put in two.

 

I've wrongly said above that the kiosk is £550 all-up. It is plus VAT. Can't find anything better though.

 

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ooh that is tight!

 

here is the one I look like buying.    I think this is the Kingspan standard one,  and the ducts are what I thought UKPN might not like 

Yes this doesn't seem to be a metered box, but I found it on the supplier's page as an approved one.

 

K1Kioskexamplewithkiosk_2048x2048_3c3777

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Yeah don’t use drainage pipe. 
 

Didn’t you get a customer works guide from UKPN that specifies what you need to do? The guide I got from SSEN says this. Your cabinet is quite big so plenty of room to get the ducting in. You could use smooth wall flexible 50mm electrical ducting into the kiosk for UKPN and your connection to the house and a 38mm hockey stick for the earth requirement to save a bit of space.  The hockey sticks are mostly used to bring the cables up into a meter box on the side of a house. 
 

IMG_2807.thumb.jpeg.31df4ecaccfffea66656b799d952c1c8.jpeg

 

 

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1 hour ago, Kelvin said:

Didn’t you get a customer works guide from UKPN

Yes . But can't find it. Your  attachment is more practical I think.

 

I've ordered the cabinet. It took two hours because the checkout price added £100 for delivery. then they agreed that was wrong and it became £12.....BUT the base price then increased by £50. Fortunately a real person agreed the price and it is now ordered. 7 to 10 days delivery. someone else said 3, and it is the same thing, sitting at the manufacturer's depot.

This cabinet should be sitting at every electrical merchant for a sensible price. 

I expect you want figures?    £584 incl VAT. It would be  a bit less for the minimum size.  I could  easily have paid £100 more even after much searching, and some wanted £1200 or more..

 

Now I hope it turns up

 

Ducts. I will take the above advice and put in a black duct 70 or 100mm for the big cables, bent to a J shape to 600 below ground. and maybe another as spare. Plus a proprietary 38mm hockey stick for the earth.

 

 

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Reasonable price for quite a big box. Some of them are stupidly expensive. 
 

I tried to search for the UKPN guide and it returned a page not found error! 
 

If this is going under an agricultural field it needs to be 1000mm deep. Driveways are 600mm and cultivated ground 450mm 

Edited by Kelvin
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16 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

Driveways are 600mm

That's us.  The land is being sold along with another redundant (and more interesting) building.

 

A similar search to yours has found a set of spec's for a site supply cabinet. it is slightly bigger than the one I have just ordered! 

It will all be fine.

It also shows that ducts are to be flexi, 125mm diameter, to 450mm deep.

 

 

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The one I have is sold as a three phase box and it looks smaller than yours.  The SSEN guide has dimensions of 800mm x 900mm for a wall mounted three phase box (600x900 for single phase) 

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2 minutes ago, mjc55 said:

Is the extra cable spliced underground?

If the kiosk is temporary and being removed?

 

I think so, and they have fancy splicing boxes that they pump resin into. I  don't now how they turn the power off while this happens.

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5 minutes ago, mjc55 said:

What happens when build is finished and want to connect to house?  Is the extra cable spliced underground?


What a lot of us do is leave the meter in the box and run a cable from the kiosk to the house. They’ll tell you there’s a 3m limit for this cable from the cutout to the CU but most of us have a much longer cable, you just size it accordingly with the correct protection and an isolator after the meter. I have two points of isolation, one at either end. 

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6 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

They’ll tell you there’s a 3m limit for this cable from the cutout to the CU but most of us have a much longer cable

The 3M linit is only if you are relying on the DNO's fuse as the circuit protection.  Fit your own (in my case switch fuse with 80A fuse in it) and there is no such limit.

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