UK Supplying a garage

[Timmfarr92]

My brother is having new electric garage doors installed and the guy doing it has said he needs two normal 13A domestic sockets installed to plug the control boxes into. My brother has asked me to do this for him but as I have not done anything domestic since college I'm unsure of the regs.

I'm quite sure his garage is not safe or up to regulations and the wiring is a complete mess. I want to rip it all out and start fresh it currently seems that the garage is fed from a single fused spur off the upstairs ring this then supplies the whole garage this includes a freezer a tumble dryer all the lighting and one of those blow up hot tubs.

He currently doesn't have any spare ways on his CU so I'm wondering if I can change the fused spur to a 13 A 30mA RCD spur to then supply a 2 way CU in the garage putting the lights and sockets on separate circuits or should get the CU replaced with a larger one with a spare way and then run a separate supply to a new CU in the garage. Thanks for any help.

 

[Dannyboybl00]

What about installing a Henley block after the meter and run the garage supply from there to a new RCD garage consumer unit?

 

[James]

Unfortunately the first thing your brother needs to do is inform building control.

Then you could do with a copy of the 18th edition to brush up on and some test equipment to verify the installation.

Best thing in this case I think would be to get a couple of local electricians to quote the job.

Sorry if it’s not the news you had hoped for.

 

[Timmfarr92]

Unfortunately the first thing your brother needs to do is inform building control.

Then you could do with a copy of the 18th edition to brush up on and some test equipment to verify the installation.

Best thing in this case I think would be to get a couple of local electricians to quote the job.

Sorry if it’s not the news you had hoped for.

To be honest this is what I was expecting and what I originally suggested to him but I said I would do some research into it and let him know

 

[davesparks]

My brother has asked me to do this for him but as I have not done anything domestic since college I'm unsure of the regs.

I assume from this that you are an electrician who works on non-domestic work? The regulations are exactly the same for domestic with a couple of exceptions, in domestic new consumer units need to be metal and lighting circuits need RCD protection.

 

[pc1966]

In England & Wales you have the Part P building control to deal with, most likely the best route is (as already suggested) to get some local electricians to quote as probably cheaper/easier.

But if no RCD on his home ring circuits and the garage in a real mess you might want to discuss options for a new CU in the home first as a higher safety priority.

If the garage is adjacent to the house and/or the power demand very light then the easiest option it to have a slot (or two) in a new CU feeding the circuits. Maybe a switched FCU for the lights off the 13A sockets using a 3A fuse if 13A or so is plenty.

If there is a lot of use, or plans for higher power in due coure (big hot tub, electric car charger, etc) then best option (as already suggested) is to have a fused-switch in the house taken from the meter tails to feed a SWA cable to the garage, and then a small CU with independent RCD or RCBOs for the various circuits there.