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hi all,

i was directed to this forum by my neighbor seeking some advice and help

at present, I'm having my front garden dug out so I can make a driveway for my mobility car.

i was wondering, one day I will be getting an electric car, so if I have opportunity to lay cable now before they put drive down, I might aswell

so just need to know what type of cable do I need to go from house to sockets that I will eventually get fitted outside on the wall they are going to build to house the driveway.

also will want to fit outside lights on the wall for when I come home in the night and park in drive, I have lights that I can turn on.

just to be clear. I'm not fitting anything at the moment, and when I do I will get a qualified electrician,

just want to know what type of cable or cables I can lay now whilst garden has been dug up

1. for outside power sockets in case I want to hoover car and want a plug outside
2. in anticipation for electric car so a socket to charge car
3 to power lights on all

the reason I want to know now is so I can find a cable now and look around for a deal

thankyou all

margaret
 
For some sockets and some lights it is fairly straightforward to select a cable if the overall length is known as the max demand there is well defined, but for a car charger it very much depends on the type of charger. Specifically the quick charge sort can take a lot of power and putting in a cable for worst-case load might be quite expensive if never needed.

At this point in time (garden digging) you might be better to look at putting in a duct that would allow a cable to be pulled through later so you can decide at the time of selecting a EV charger.

Best plan is to speak to a local electrician to get a bit of advice for your particular layout and on the size of duct (larger diameter is needed if a few bends to pull stiff cable through) and burial depth (depends on risk of damage so could be just under paving stones but needs to be probably 45cm down for light digging areas).

They should also be able to advise you on the lights/sockets, you might be lucky that you don't need buried cable (e.g. it can be routed along a fence or wall) or you might insist on it for aesthetic reasons. A lot of variables!
 
thankyou for your response

the retaining wall being built is approx 7 feet from the house bay window. and on that wall I want to fit the 2 sockets as it will be a bay for 2 cars. so from those sockets back to house is a approx 7 to 10 feet.
 
You should install ducting now so that cables can be pulled in at a later date whenever they are needed.

If you install cables now then they may get damaged, either by physical damage or by water getting in to the unterminated ends of the cables.
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thankyou for your response

the retaining wall being built is approx 7 feet from the house bay window. and on that wall I want to fit the 2 sockets as it will be a bay for 2 cars. so from those sockets back to house is a approx 7 to 10 feet.

Are you installing normal 13A sockets or electric car charging points? They have very different requirements in some respects.

The electrical supply will need to come from your consumer unit (fuse board) not just run from the nearest socket within the house.
 
i wish to install both charging points and sockets. as well as power wall lights.

in respect of ducting that is a great idea. i will probably do this.

but what I need to know is what type of cable so I can shop around to seek if I can find it cheaper.
 
For car charging points, install ducting as already mentioned, that will allow routing of the cable(s) to the consumer unit / fuse box. There is no point shopping around for cable for this at present, since you don't even know what size it should be, depending on the type of car charger(s).

Re some lighting at this point, it might be a good idea to have a separate lighting supply, also from the consumer unit, it can perhaps go in the same ducting. The cost of this is relatively trivial compared to the other cables and labour costs, and I wouldn't worry about shopping around for anything at this time.
 
i wish to install both charging points and sockets. as well as power wall lights.

in respect of ducting that is a great idea. i will probably do this.

but what I need to know is what type of cable so I can shop around to seek if I can find it cheaper.
word of caution... if you buy the cable, your electrician cannot warranty it, so if it fails, it's an expense you personally will need to bear, both for new cable and the labour to install it. is it worth the hassle just to save a few quid?
 
Most electricians prefer to provide the cable themselves, or at least sort it out with the client before any decision on purchasing. Issues like fake cheap cable being recalled in the past are factors here as they are the ones having to sign off on the safety aspect:
 
i wish to install both charging points and sockets. as well as power wall lights.

in respect of ducting that is a great idea. i will probably do this.

but what I need to know is what type of cable so I can shop around to seek if I can find it cheaper.

Without seeing the installation, and specification of the car charger(s) we cannot carry out the design and calculations to establish what size cable is required or what other works are required to enable these new circuits to be installed safely.

You should get an electrician to visit to assess what is required, there may be other things you can do now at the groundwork stage to make the charging point installation easier/better.

Personally if it was my property I would be installing earth electrodes at the groundwork stage to guard against PME faults, but that's just my opinion.
 
Ducting is the way to go, regulations on charging points keep changing as technology and requirements change, putting in what might be required now may change with time, this could be an expensive lesson, ducting and some drag line will future proof the job.
 
Lights and sockets should be easy to fit, generally they would be added to existing circuit(s) in your home as they are light occasional loads.

Having them on separate circuits is an advantage as if there is a fault or damage you only lose the outside stuff, but failing that (for cost/convenience) then an isolator switch would be enough to allow your home power to be restored until an outside fault is fixed.

However an EV charge will be a dedicated high-power circuit back to your consumer unit (fuse box) so the additional cable route length needs to be considered in its choice.
 
Lights and sockets should be easy to fit, generally they would be added to existing circuit(s) in your home as they are light occasional loads.

Only if a seperate circuit is impossible, I would only extend an existing power circuit to remote external sockets as a last resort option.
 
Only if a separate circuit is impossible, I would only extend an existing power circuit to remote external sockets as a last resort option.
That is always the best option!

Still it would depend on what is found by the sparky who visits. If the CU is full then it becomes a bit moot unless the cost for replacing it for future EV upgrades is factored in as worth doing.
 
Ducting is the best option for you at the moment. As others have said without knowing the future loads etc it would be wasteful to install cable now as it may be the wrong size/type.

Also cable prices vary, the price of copper is quite high at the minute. Many of use prefer different manufacturers cables through experience such as insulation flexibility and ease of stripping.

There's some very good advice on this forum that's free, use it and save yourself some money.
 
Wow great advice from all you guys thank you so so much so what I got from reading all the posts were not to bother with the cable but just put ducking in at the moment. Therefore when I am ready to wire in an external socket or wall lights it's and electric charging points I just pass the cables and into the house.

So if talking is the way to go can somebody please help me and explain where exactly I need to put the ducking say 4 the wall lights and the external power socket and also the the outside electric charge points. Do I use the same ducking for all all the cables

The Builder has built a u-shaped wall in front of my house with a very high retaining wall as my house is on a hill with a slope going down and I want to put in the two charging points on the retaining wall as well as a power socket and 2 lights on either side of the wall and 2 on the retaining wall.

So in theory im going to need 1 cable coming from each side wall for the wall lights and from the retaining wall, which will house 2 wall lights, 1 power socket and 2 charge points, ill need cables to come through retaining wall for these.

To be able to house all these cables either coming from the side walls where the wall light will be, call coming from the back of a retaining wall which will house house socket charging points and two further wall lights where exactly do I place the ducking on the walls and where does he need to go to

I only ask this as my builder is asking me where he wants me to put the ducking.

Ive added a pic of house for help. Eventually all the front garden will be gone and replaced with a u shape retaining wall and a front drive for my mobility car
 
site can't upload pics. at the moment, but you can upload a pdf.
 
Good advice re just ducting. I would run separate ducting for each of the lighting, sockets & car charger. That way, you have scope, if a particular ducting is damaged during the build.The ducting needs to have a draw string in it to.

Something like this;


Its smoothed walled, making it easier to draw cables. I would install the ducting as if you were installing cables, in suitable trench with a base layer of sand etc. You can buy more robust ducting or similar, but they are more difficult to install and draw in cables.m

As others have said, I would seek advice locally from a competent electrician. Once the ducting & garden have been laid, you won’t want to be digging it up again.
 
Hi thanks for the advise.

Can i just ask you clarify a couple of things.

1. What do you mean when you say the ducting needs to have a draw string into it.

2. What do you mean when you say
in suitable trench with a base layer of sand
Etc.

3. The link you sent has various ducting for different thickness I assume, so which thickness ducting would i need for a wall light cable, a power socket, and 2 electric charging points

4. So lets assume, the u shape wall is up.

As i want one light on the left side of the wall and one on the right side of the wall. Do i drill hole into each side wall and insert ducting and pass through wall into soil behind and bring up through the ground by the house at whichever point I will want to take into house eventually

And then do same at the retaining wall, drill 5 holes, 2 for wall lights, 2 for charging points and 1 for power socket, so 5 ducts being pushed through individal holes in the wall, and again through back of wall into ground behind the wall and then eventually up to the point where I will eventually end up taking them into those in the future. So at that point i should have 7 ducts popping out.

Is that correct?

Im aware my builder should know this but i would like to educate myself.

Thanks
 
The draw string is to make easier installing cables. I tend to replace the string, by pulling in a stronger rope. You can use a draw tape, but it’s safer to rely on an installed draw string.

The cables and ducting should be installed in suitably sized trench, to prevent mechanical damage from digging. You can search on here for those requirements.

As regards what to put where, bit adventurous from sat a pc screen. I would get some on site advice.
 
The layer of sand in the trench is the usual advice if there are significant stones present that could damage the duct over time as the ground settles. The duct can survive a lot of even pressure, but not point pressure from sharp objects. So depending on the soil characteristics you would put in some sand, then the duct, then more sand (around 5cm thick, or thereabouts, all round the pipe), and finally back-fill with whatever had been dug out in the first place.

Generally you don't get T-pieces for cable duct as its impossible to pull a cable through a sharp bend, except for the occasional thing for cable TV where you expect regular exit points from one overall long run:

The usual thing for branching and/or providing an easy access point for cable pulling is a buried box with manhole type cover, but in your case that would probably cost more than another run of duct pipe! So basically what Midwest said a few posts ago.

Depending on the effort/cost and aesthetics it would make more sense to run cables for the lights and 13A sockets on the wall surface to join them up, and then take both circuits down in one location to a duct for them, and then have another duct running round to your planned EV charging point.

One thing to bear in mind when talking about drilling through walls for cable routes is the minimum bend radius of the cable. That is usually something around 6-10 times the diameter, so for a typical small-ish outdoor cable as you might put in for the light/13A socket circuits with a diameter of something like 8-12mm you need to keep any bends to around 10cm radius and not a sharp 90deg as it exits from a hole in a wall!

It is best to get the sparky to look at that, as sadly most builders don't take that much care of cables (even their own, if you have ever seen the typical state of site electrics on a construction project)
 

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