Planning some garden electrics at your Fordingbridge home? Thinking of installing them yourself? Here's what not to do - and why you should call in your local, qualified electrician.

Garden Electrics Fordingbridge - Carlyia Ltd

Garden Electrical Safety

DON'T DO THIS!!!!

We discovered this (see picture above) during an EICR (electrical safety check) and found that someone had installed a standard PVC cable to supply power from one outside socket to another. The cable was thrown over a roof and partly enclosed in a piece of copper pipe.

As you can see the rodents have also discovered the cable and decided to gnaw at it exposing the inner conductors. This could very easily result in someone touching the copper pipe made live by the damaged cable. Oh and it's NOT RCD protected and the sockets used are surface mounted sockets you would use inside the house and not in the slightest weatherproof.

VERY VERY DANGEROUS!

Safe Garden Electrics

We are going to replace the cable with SWA (Steel Wired Armoured) so that the outer steel armouring of the cable is earthed, ensuring this is the first part of the cable that is touched in the event of a fault and will trip the fuse within 40 milliseconds. We will also be installing proper IP66 weatherproof sockets and providing 30ma RCD protection.