potential safety issues for garden lights?

[LLL]

Hi, I have a garden lighting that has not been running for 1 year but I plan to repair it myself, as you can see from the pics, the cable is just buried in the soil about 5-10cm deep. no protection at all though seems the cable is quite strong. also because of the tree root part of the cable is now over the ground. 

 

1, is there any safety issue with putting the cable under ground without projection

 

2, how to deal with this small section (about 2 metres with the light in the middle) that obviously can't bury the cable under the soil due to the dealing between the tree root and the slabs 

 

thanks 

 

[dpmiller]

is this mains or low voltage?

[ProDave]

No mains cables should be at least 450mm deep

 

IF it's steel wire armoured cable and properly terminated with proper glands you could get away with it but the point of burying it deep is so no future owner cuts through it when digging the garden.

 

I strongly suspect that cable is just PVC or rubber non armoured if so rip it all out and start again with the correct cable.

[LLL]

It should be the main cables I believe, however the cable is along with the retaining wall and under the slabs side the wall so it is hard to be cut since the position. I think it s properly glands since I saw a quite great quality box in the garden. But it just a rubber cable I believe. Let’s assume no one can cut is, will it be possible the cable itself decomposed in soil? 
 

what if I change it to 12v, can I reuse the cable? It is about 20m from the main. 

[andyscotland]

I would never assume a cable can't be cut. Sooner or later someone will want to lift the slabs / dig out a weed / make some change.

 

If it isn't steel wire armoured cable (and the second photo of it pvc taped into a terminal block looks like it isn't) then it's not compliant or safe.

 

You could, however, use it for 12V if it's easier to change the supply and lamps than the cable. You'd need to check the cable conductors are thick enough for the load you want to supply : at lower voltage it takes more current to supply the same number of watts and this means the resistance of the cable becomes more important. There should be a cable sizing printed/embossed somewhere on the outer sheath although this may have come off if it's been outdoors a while.

Edited February 9 by andyscotland

[LLL]

thanks Andy. 

 

I think it is quite difficult to change the cable and the cable is quite thick! so change the lights might be a good idea

I plan to have 3 lights (5 watts/each?) with a potential extension of another 3 in the future, something like below, any suggestions about the transformer and the lamppost? When i try to find online, most of them are with cables and fixed-length plug-ins, which I can't use. Can I buy the transformer and the posts separately?