armoured cable what type - power into garage

allan673

hi, do i need armoured cable from the house to the garage please?
basically im having a new consumer unit fitted and want power from the house to the garage. the garage is about 3 metres from the house. alltogether i need approx 10 metres of cable to go from the consumer unit, outside of the house, buried under the lawn and into the garage.
how much does it cost please and what cable do i ask for? is it 3 core etc? any earth on it? seen some 3 x 2.5mm?? or 3 x 6mm??
i want to get it before the sparky comes, and ask him to wire the cable to the consumer unit but leave it coiled up outside to do at a later date.
i want 2 double sockets, and 2 x 5 foot flourescent light fittings - probably double light units, so 4 x 5 foot tubes.

ktuludays

just ask your sparky to get some for you. tell him what you expect to run from it and he will get the correct gauge for you.

my sparky did this for me. i ran the armoured from the old consumer unit that i fitted in the garage under 1.5 metres of driveway and ran the rest along the bottom of the brick of the house to consumer unit.

if you are burying it under the garden make sure you do it to the regs.

by the way my sparky got it delivered direct to me before he came and it only cost me £28 for 15m

DCFC79

Id get the sparky to get it as would he not get it at trade price

Rotor

Well i've just taken armoured cable out to my greenhouse. I used 3 core x 4mm. This is rated at 25 amps which is roughly 6 kw at standard household voltage (240) Which I think would be plenty for most uses

allan673

cheers, so is 3 core 6mm over the top?

Rotor

Yea probably - depends what you think you might use. In domestic circumstances it's usually things that heat stuff that use most power ( fan heaters, irons, hair dryers etc - What you going to do in your garage lol) all will be 3kw or less 'cos the maximum that should be plugged into 1 socket is roughly 3 kw. See what your sparky thinks but i imagine 6mm cable is harder to work with: if he's not fussed then no harm in having bigger cable and the cost increase on a 10m run would be modest.