Ultimate kiosk...

[Bitpipe]

Our beloved sparky has been doing the last few jobs and is finishing up where he started, in the garden kiosk which he installed on October 2014!

 

It's probably not in the ideal location  but has survived the whole build process of demolition, heavy plant, deliveries, landscaping and felling of a nearby tree.

 

The kiosk now contains incoming mains supply, company fuse, meter, switched supply to house, garage and garden sockets (was temps to caravan and site office) main gate controls, driveway lighting, wall lighting and supply to secondary gate controls.

 

Very tragically there is no room for a smart meter  

 

Seems a shame to put covers on the boxes and close the door on it! Might explore making it completely see through and light it from inside, like those funky gaming PCs ...

 

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Bitpipe

[Barney12]

Whats the vented grey box pretty much central?

 

Shame about the SMART meter

[Mr Punter]

Automatic gate controls I think. There is still some room for some more stuff if you pack it tightly. Maybe some ethernet stuff or CCTV? At least a couple of double sockets, just in case.

[Bitpipe]

Yes, grey box is a Came gate controller. External socket is going on wall so kiosk doesn’t need to be opened to use it.

 

Cctv was the one thing i never really make provision for - kind of wish I’d pulled an additional few cat 6 between house and kiosk - the one that’s there is for the intercom and gate controls.

[ToughButterCup]

3 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

[...]

 Might explore making it completely see through and light it from inside, like those funky gaming PCs ...

 

Ahhhh, that'll be it: fill the thing with water and light it with purple LEDs. Stick a humongous heat sink in it (22mm copper pipe) .

Keep tropical fish in it while yer at it. (Like one of my more zany students did) 

 

Top idea!

[Onoff]

Are you missing a seal (s) on that head fuse?

[Bitpipe]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

Are you missing a seal (s) on that head fuse?

 

I have no idea. Will ask sparky on Monday.

[Bitpipe]

Eek..

 

It’s dissipated now but rain has been torrential all day - even porus resin driveway was flooding.

 

Will need to move the gate induction loop unit up a bit as it has a 240-12v transformer next to it, don’t want that getting wet.

 

Everything else should be well out of the way.

[Jeremy Harris]

Ooops!  That's a bit of a bugger.  Makes me glad I decided to stick ours fairly high up in a fence. 

 

Had our very good landscaping chap back around yesterday (who happens to have just started a Class Q self-build), as we want to put in a pond and some more raised beds.  When I looked out our bedroom window this morning it looked like we already had a pond pretty much exactly where we are getting one put in...

[Bitpipe]

Problem is just behind it we have a soak away for a street gully which was overflowing so that didn’t help.

 

[Adam2]

Am about to start our demolition prep in anticipation of planning approval (#3)! On the job list is our outside elec cabinet location and having seen this @Bitpipeam wondering about the pros/cons of keeping it in the same place long term and running the house and garage supplies from there after the build vs relocating the main supply termination inside the house. Would save extra cost for moving supply after the build though downside I guess could be security - someone could easily turn off all power to the house, not sure why but you never know, may be mitigated by some disguising of the cabinet? Would appreciate thoughts on the security point.

 

If we do leave it in-situ presumably a suitably qualified electrician can do everything else we would need without requiring DNO or our supply co to do anything? 

 

If the cabinet is initially mounted ~1m off the ground on timber and later we wanted to move within the range of the supply cable flexibility is that allowed - am thinking we may make something more robust for longer term suitability than the timber so could move a small amount?

 

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by Adam2

[joe90]

3 minutes ago, Adam2 said:

Am about to start our demolition prep in anticipation of planning approval (#3)! On the job list is our outside elec cabinet location and having seen this @Bitpipeam wondering about the pros/cons of keeping it in the same place long term and running the house and garage supplies from there after the build vs relocating the main supply termination inside the house. Would save extra cost for moving supply after the build though downside I guess could be security - someone could easily turn off all power to the house, not sure why but you never know, may be mitigated by some disguising of the cabinet? Would appreciate thoughts on the security point.

 

If we do leave it in-situ presumably a suitably qualified electrician can do everything else we would need without requiring DNO or our supply co to do anything? 

 

If the cabinet is initially mounted ~1m off the ground on timber and later we wanted to move within the range of the supply cable flexibility is that allowed - am thinking we may make something more robust for longer term suitability than the timber so could move a small amount?

 

 

 

 

 

I did just this, mounted an “in built wall cabinet” on two fence posts 2 mtrs away from where it was going eventually in a garage wall (didn’t want a plastic box on our pretty brick cottage!), DNO connected it up with double socket and rcd fuses for use by builders. When the garage was finished I simply moved the box into the hole left by the builders and moved the fuse box into garage. During the foundation stage we buried a suitable cable from this into the cottage ready for its wiring. Never bothered to get DNO to move it and when they connected up the temporary box I told them what I was going to do and they said what a good idea. Just make sure the temporary position gives you enough cable to swing it into the final position.

[Bitpipe]

6 minutes ago, Adam2 said:

Am about to start our demolition prep in anticipation of planning approval (#3)! On the job list is our outside elec cabinet location and having seen this @Bitpipeam wondering about the pros/cons of keeping it in the same place long term and running the house and garage supplies from there after the build vs relocating the main supply termination inside the house. Would save extra cost for moving supply after the build though downside I guess could be security - someone could easily turn off all power to the house, not sure why but you never know, may be mitigated by some disguising of the cabinet? Would appreciate thoughts on the security point.

 

The thought has crossed my mind However our kiosk has a lock which needs a triangular key to open and can additionally be padlocked. That said, in the 5 years it has been there, it has never been touched even when it was open to the street before we had the wall built and gates installed. When I finish landscaping, it will be even more obscured.

 

Bottom line is, aside from mischief, cutting power to house would trigger the burglar alarm so not much value in that either.

 

If I'm honest, the kiosk location is not perfect and was dictated by a large walnut tree which we wanted to keep but died.

 

6 minutes ago, Adam2 said:

If we do leave it in-situ presumably a suitably qualified electrician can do everything else we would need without requiring DNO or our supply co to do anything? 

 

 

Yes - this is one of the key benefits, no return visit from DNO required.

 

6 minutes ago, Adam2 said:

If the cabinet is initially mounted ~1m off the ground on timber and later we wanted to move within the range of the supply cable flexibility is that allowed - am thinking we may make something more robust for longer term suitability than the timber so could move a small amount?

 

Maybe, DNO does not leave slack in their cabling but you could maybe introduce some in the joint pit but SWA is not very flexible and when you have more than a few in the kiosk, it will be hard to move.

 

To be honest, that flood event was very unusual, and a result of a tropical downpour all day, also it was never close to anything that could be damaged aside from the induction loop controller which is now higher up.

[joe90]

3 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

DNO does not leave slack in their cabling

 

Ours did when I told them what I was going to do, maybe it was the actual engineers rather than the DNO. I was surprised how small the cable was, concentric rather than SWA. The SWA to the house was way bigger.

[Bitpipe]

39 minutes ago, joe90 said:

 

Ours did when I told them what I was going to do, maybe it was the actual engineers rather than the DNO. I was surprised how small the cable was, concentric rather than SWA. The SWA to the house was way bigger.

 

Yep, it is quite tiddly but not protected but needs to be in duct.

[joe90]

1 hour ago, Bitpipe said:

but not protected but needs to be in duct.

 

Ours was laid direct in the ground, in sand with warning tape over.

[Adam2]

Is there a limit on the max distance the main supply cable can be from the meter point in the cabinet outside to a consumer unit (or other initial internal connection point)? Mine looks like 18-22m

[joe90]

2 minutes ago, Adam2 said:

Is there a limit on the max distance the main supply cable can be from the meter point in the cabinet outside to a consumer unit (or other initial internal connection point)? Mine looks like 18-22m

 

Mine is a bit more than  that.

[Jeremy Harris]

29 minutes ago, Adam2 said:

Is there a limit on the max distance the main supply cable can be from the meter point in the cabinet outside to a consumer unit (or other initial internal connection point)? Mine looks like 18-22m

 

Once over 3m from the main fuse to the consumer unit, then an additional fuse is needed (it's usual to fit a fused isolator switch) at the cabinet end.  Any length of cable can then be run from there to the consumer unit in the house.  Minimum size would be 25mm², usually 3 core SWA, but if the cable run is really long then that may need to be increased, depends on the voltage drop.  25mm² is fine for a 22m run (in fact it's OK for up to 60m for a 5% voltage drop at 100 A).

[PeterW]

I did 26m with 25mm cable and the big learning point is make sure your bends are very very big radius in the ducts .... pulling a 25mm armoured 3 core cable through a 63mm duct was a 3 man job ..!