Cable & conduit for a temp static caravan supply?

[epsilonGreedy]

I will be siting a static caravan next to my build for a year or possibly two winters. Site layout congestion and concern for neighbours means there will only be a 3 meter gap between the house walls and van (just enough space for scaffolding I hope).

 

My cunning plan is to run a cooker-circuit sized cable from the temp electrical meter & CU cabinet around the external house footings trench before back filling the trench with soil, as a result the cable will be about 500mm deep. This leaves that short 3m span to the static. When the build is finished I will disconnect the buried cable and leave it there to puzzle an archaeologist 1000 years from now.

 

Should such a temp supply be run through a conduit and will I need a special grade or cable?

[Jeremy Harris]

Use SWA and bury it directly, no real need for conduit if you're going to leave the cable there afterwards.  Needs a Part P installation and sign off, BTW (assuming you're in Part P land), so not a DIY job.

[ProDave]

Yes definitely a SWA cable buried where it won't come to harm. Don't go burying the wrong sort of cable.

 

Remember the 'van should be connected to a TT earth, so be careful where / how you earth the arnour. Your electrician should know that.

[epsilonGreedy]

3 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Needs a Part P installation and sign off, BTW (assuming you're in Part P land), so not a DIY job.

 

 

Ok I was not aware of that. I will get the static connection done at the same time as the temporary consumer unit is wired in.

[Jeremy Harris]

The basic rules with a self-build (England and Wales, Scotland and NI are different) are that for the house itself you can either use a Part P approved electrician for the installation, who will do the paperwork as he/she goes and issue you and building control with the installation cert at the end, or, in theory, you can do all the wiring installation yourself and request that building control inspect and test to Part P.***

 

This doesn't really apply to a mobile home installation, though, where you will need an electrician to do the installation and issue a certificate anyway, as it doesn't fall within the building control rules for a new dwelling or other work requiring building control approval, AFAIK.

 

 

*** The fly in the ointment is that some building control bodies are unable to do the required inspection and test of an electrical installation.  To some extent this this is a bit of protectionism by the commercial bodies that operate the Part P accreditation schemes - they are reluctant, it seems, to approves electricians to inspect and test third party work only.  I ran into this problem, as our building control body admitted they were not able to inspect and test an electrical installation and knew of no electricians in the area that were accredited to do so.  I can understand the reluctance to wish to sign off third party work to some extent, as much of the cabling will be hidden from view and unless an inspector makes several visits he/she would have no way of knowing if the cabling was being run in safe zones, was being de-rated for grouping and insulation, was adequately supported as required by the regs, etc.

 

This scuppered my plans to wire the house myself, so I ended up having to use a Part P accredited electrician.