Printable View
As some of you may or may not know I have a fair amount of server / network equipment running at home. I am soon to be moving house and putting the rack into the new garage, the issue is that there are no decent power outlets in the garage.
I was thinking of getting a dedicated 20amp circuit installed into the garage but I am not actually sure what the cost of this would be.
Does anyone here know what kind of costs I will be looking at for this?
Thanks
The breaker itself isn't that expensive, but the cost depends on the ease or otherwise of running cable to the garage, and if there is a spare way in the consumer unit for the new breaker.
If there is already power to the garage, as part of a ringmain in the house, I'd be tempted to leave it be. Otherwise you have to find where the garage feed goes off to the garage, remake the ringmain at that point, and then extend the cable bck to the consumer unit.
If the garager supply is spurred off the ringmain, you still need to extend the spur back to the new breaker.
If the house is new build, you might be able to get the work done as part of the building process.
If it is additional work, something like this falls under part P of the building regulations, so it has to be approved/inspected by a comptetent person.
Cost? |MNaterials are the smallest part, labour will be the largest part, and will depend on the amount iof work involved. Might be worth getting sa couple of quotes dfrom some electicians and your electricity supplier. but I'd be surprised if it was less than £200-£250 - but all depends on the time and work involved.
Good job I did mine before the reg's changed, innit. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by peterb
Are you sure you are going to need 20 amps?
20 X 230 = 4600 watts
4.6 * 10p (cheap electricity) = 46p an hour
= £4029.60 a year.
If you are drawing that level of current, your kit is in the wrong place.
Peak current demand can be brief, though. The fact that you can draw 20A in a worst case peak doesn't mean you draw 20A all the time, any more than a 32A cooker circuit costs £6k a year.
Good job I have got a drum of 2.5mm twin and earth in the old colour scheme (which changed when the new regs came in!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Saracen
:innocent:Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
That didn't cross my mind. Not for a moment. You sneaky ol' bleep, you. I wish I'd done that.
:innocent: :devilish:
PS. Notes, in passing, that sales of old colour cable shot into the stratosphere on the changeover, as the trade discovered an urgent 'need' for extra stock, and became about as easy to find as fresh rocking horse poop.
As has my old man. Lots of it. Lots.Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
Out of interest what's with the need for stockpiling old cable? DIY work that doesn't need to be checked?
Jay, wouldn't you simply put in an additional 30amp ring if you are going to all the trouble of running new wires from the fusebox?
These days electricians seem to favour radial circuits rather than rings. Alot of them use 20amp MCB's and 4mm^2 cable radials as they are easier to test.
Technically it still needs to be checked if thework was done after part P came into force. However, the cable colours also changed on that date and so using the old cable on a pre-part P installation means that you can't tell when it was done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiternoise
Of course the same argument might be applied to new cable on a new installation, who is to say when it was done or that it wasn't part of the original installation?
Ring mains tend to be a British 'thing' and were introduced after WW2 (I think) when copper was in short supply and there was a lot of house rebuilding going on. Prior to thaty, most houses were radially wired, with each circuit protected by a single fuse, and that is also the case in contental Europe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sputnik
In the UK, high current ccts like cookers, electic showers and immersion heaters are radially wired.
Lighting ccts are probably where ring topology is justifiable as the connected load is relatively low and constant, unlike a socket cct where the connected load is variable, and if the ring becomes broken, the cable rating could be exceeded in one of the broken legs, as the single current carrying capacity is lower than the two halves of the ring in parallel.
Radially ccts are safer, and more versatile - and have the advantage that a fault on one cct does not switch off equipment on any other cct, but does use more cable.
Even if there is not a break, The load on each leg can vary depending on the location of the sockets (by cable length) drawing the load. If the socket is only a few metres away from the consumer unit on one leg it is unlikely to have a 50% load on each leg.Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
The other consideration is we now have lots more electrical appliances in our homes and many heavy load items in the kitchen especially which makes having a couple of radial circuits in the kitchen a good way of sharing the load sensibly.
There are exceptions and some crazy ones at that.Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
If your replacing like with like generally no. So if the mains supply to your garage was done by 'billy bodge it' using telephone cable (dangerous of course) and you replace it with the same - not notifiable but, If you want to change it with the correct cable type - notifiable.
Crazy isn't it ?
Very true. Interestingly, in France (and maybe other countries) it isn't unusual to have a three phase supply to the house, which adds a new dimension to load balancing across the three phases. (a friend of mine has a house in France with a three phase supply and had that problem, particularly as he has a heat pump for heating a swimming pool) And of course ensuring minimum separation between sockets on different phases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sputnik
Yes, quite a few anomolies!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sputnik