Removing electricity supply to shed

keith969

I've got an old shed in the garden that I want to demolish and grass over the area where it is. However the previous owners had an electricity supply put into the shed; there is an approx 1 inch diameter armoured cable going up the side and in to a consumer unit in the shed.

The cable obviously goes into the house somewhere but its not obvious where it connects to the house system. Would it have to connect to the house consumer unit which is in the garage? If it does it must change to standard cable somewhere above the garage ceiling.

Am not proposing to try and disconnect it myself but wondered what the options are before I call out a sparky - could the cable just be terminated and left buried under the lawn, or is it better to disconnect it in the house (which may entail removing part of the garage ceiling)?

WestonDave

Unless there is a seperate meter for it somewhere (or next door!) it must connect to the main meter in the house - either via the main consumer unit or by some other means - I guess it could connect directly to the meter (are there any unexplained connections from the meter that don't go to the house consumer unit?) if there is another consumer unit in the shed although I'm not sure that would be "recommended practice" currently!

My personal opinion is to try and work out what the shed is connected to - stick a light out there and turn off the switches on the consumer unit one by one until it goes off. If it doesn't go off at all then it may be connected either directly or via another fused switch near the meter. We have power in our garage but its on a seperate switch on the consumer unit which could relatively easily be isolated off. I guess your biggest problem is going to be if the shed is connected to the consumer unit but on a circuit that serves other things (e.g. the downstairs ring main) - if that is the case then the safest option is to find out where it connects in and disconnect it. I'm not sure leaving it buried is a good idea as a subsequent owner could start digging and hit it - armoured or not! (and we don't know that its armoured underground - we only know the visible bit is armoured!)

ormus

yes it will change into armoured cable somewhere. its very expensive and you would not (very unlikely) use it for the whole length from box to shed.
theres probably a simple junction box somewhere.

the garage consumer unit is the most likely place for it to connect to the supply. it should be easy enough to discover which wires are the shed wires.

i would not simply cap the ends off and bury it, live.

keith969

Got it thanks! There is a 40A MCB in the CU, and turning that off disabled the power to the shed. Guess removing the connection to that should do the trick.

chrisw

Is it not worth just connecting an outdoor socket on the end? A socket in the garden is always useful for lawnmowers, power tools, etc.