T

tshort1984

Hello to you all. I am new to these forums, and not a qualified sparky, but after your advice. I am the MD of a company that has moved to a new industrial unit, well part of a unit. The unit is 22k sq ft, and has about 6 CU spread around the walls. We are letting around 10k sq ft, and have 1 of these CU in our unit. The landlord has had a sparky in to sub-meter our section of the unit, ready for our sparky to install out outlets and rewire our lights.

Basically, i would like you to confirm the landloards wiring is safe, and meterered correctly (so i dont end up paying for someone elses electric!!

The CU had a 10mm 4c swa cable supply. The CU has been replaced by a metal box with the SWA glanded to it with a brass washer inside the box with 6mm earth bolted to the washer (other end fixed to all metal connecter block inside the box, and has 2 cable exiting the block). There is a 3/4 inch MDF board screwed into the back of this box. The 4 cores then feed into the meter (mounted to the MDF). There is another set of 10mm meter tails out of this meter that go to 4 seperate black blocks (also mounted to the MDF). these black blocks then have 2 meter tails coming out each block (so each block has 3 tails, 1x10mm in, 2x10mm out), 1 set of the 4xcores + 1xearth then exit the box on the right at the top, into a 100a isolator switch. The other 4xcores + 1xearth exit the box on the right at the bottom into another 100a isolator switch. Both these isolators are wired the same, with the 3 live tails into the fused connectors, the neutral to an isolated connector block, and the earth to the all metal connector block.

To clarify, we need 2 CU installing, one on each opposite wall (its a long, thin unit with sockets requires down both walls)

Im assuming this is all correct and safe/legal?

Im also assuming all my sparky needs to do is wire his 10mm SWA from the isolaters to the new CU, and wire from there?

Hope this is clear enough!

Thanks in advance for you much valued insight.
 
All sounds like a pretty standard set-up myself, without actually seeing the set-up. Why not take a photo or two and post here, we can give you a far better assessment with being able to see what were talking about....
 
Yes photos are always best.


Sounds fair enough. As your 2 CU's are going to be wired by your Electrician there will be no worries about paying for other users electricity on those circuits, he will have to find the origin of the 10mm SWA supply cable and therefore test/see if it is connected to an existing load which is highly unlikely.

A very concise description for a non-sparky by the way.
 
Your landlord would leave himself open to prosecution if the metering is incorrect. So it’s not only in your interest it should be correct.
Pictures of the metering would be helpful.
 
Thanks all. The reason im asking is my sparky is on a job 120 miles away, and is coming on thursday to install my sockets. If the wiring was badly wrong, he has no time to 'fix' it as my shop goes 'live' on monday next week.

SIIVON - Thanks for your positive comment! Im by no means a sparky, but i sometimes have to do my own fault finging and repairs if something goes wrong (its a steel fabrication shop, so theres a lot of accident involving damaged SWA, smashed sockets and plugs, wear and tear etc) I usually cant wait the 48 hrs for a sparky, so i have to do it myself, and the sparky checkas it when he eventually turns up (never had a problem with my wiring in 7 years, except for putting a 16a CF in leiu if a 32!)

A quick question, what is cheaper, SWA or trunking? Im not having a 3 phase ring, because i want each machine on its own breaker. We currently use SWA, but in this economic climate, is it cheaper to have single cores in trunking?

We only use welders/drills/lathes/bandsaws, so radiation from cable to cable shouldnt be a problem - or am i wrong?

Thanks again!
 
With trunking and conduit drops to each machine you have the backbone of a system that can be relatively easily be alerted in the future. It would get my vote.
 
I can second that!! lol!!

With a metal containment system your installation will be physically stronger than a SWA cable, wiring will be easily upgradable, and as Tony stated easily adaptable to your future needs...

For an industrial final circuit distribution system, it can't be beaten!!
 
Thanks. At least i can get my lads to install the trunking and conduit to the walls of the unit. Getting worried that it wont get installed in 2 days :/

Final question (i promise) the light switch for the highbay lights in our part of the unit is about 15m into the other unit. Can my sparky run the 3phases and neg over to a new switch by my enterance door? (3 swiths operate 3 banks of lights - im assuming i will have a L1,L2,L3,n,n,n wires to move accross? or will the negs be daisy chained in the switch back?
 
That's something no-one can answer here, it could be wired in too many ways. It's doubtful that there will be a neutral at the switch point. Your electrician will have to check for himself, what wiring system has been used and go from there.

That i'm sure, can at least wait until he after has finished the power install for your factories start up on Monday....

Looks like he could well be doing a week-ender!! lol!!
 

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3 phase for industrial unit
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