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garden socket

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sg31
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Re: garden socket

#89724

Postby sg31 » October 21st, 2017, 12:36 pm

It depends on the amount of vegetation and the depth of the cable. I'd have a gentle dig around the cable and see how deep it goes. If it goes deep and/or there's a lot of vegetation you might have a lot of work to track it's route but if it is shallow and under grass you might be able to pull a section to the surface and get a very good idea of it's genera direction.

In my last house I had a similar problem in that there were 3 outside lights that were dead. I pulled up enough cable on of them to assess that it travelled under the lawn in the direction of the decking. It turned out all three lights were wired into a spur under the decking. In the end I actually pulled the cable up through the grass to remove it completely. I did need a bit of assistance in places but it was only about 3 inches deep. The grass soon recovered.

bungeejumper
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Re: garden socket

#89736

Postby bungeejumper » October 21st, 2017, 1:28 pm

sg31 wrote:In the end I actually pulled the cable up through the grass to remove it completely. I did need a bit of assistance in places but it was only about 3 inches deep. The grass soon recovered.

Live cable, three inches deep? Yikes, I aerate my lawn deeper than that. With a garden fork. :cry:

Back in the days before Part P, I was occasionally known to bury armoured cable (for lights, outbuildings etc) about 15 inches deep, and encased within a length of white plastic waste pipe that bore the words "230 volts" in large letters at 12 inch intervals. (If I'd been a bit more savvy, I would also have specified where it entered the house.)

It wouldn't have met the current 700mm depth requirement, but it would have given whoever found it a fighting chance of figuring out what it was. And it was, of course, all circuit-breakered inside the house, so the scope for calamity was much reduced.

Which reminds me. Back in my schooldays, a JCB operator working on some foundations in the school playing field was killed when his bucket hit an underground cable. The story we were told was that he was all right until he stepped down from the cab, because the rubber tyres had stopped the charge from going anywhere. At which point, his boots completed the circuit and he was instantly fried. (He should have jumped down, apparently, not climbed down.) Does that sound plausible to our resident experts? Would be good to know.

BJ

sg31
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Re: garden socket

#89749

Postby sg31 » October 21st, 2017, 2:01 pm

To be fair it was armoured cable. :D

The fused spur was a half decent job. It looked like someone had done everything to spec apart from the depth of cable and lack of warning tape.

csearle
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Re: garden socket

#89910

Postby csearle » October 22nd, 2017, 1:16 pm

bungeejumper wrote:It wouldn't have met the current 700mm depth requirement...
As far as I know this is only a guideline to be found in Electricians Guides (unless the've sneaked it into BS7671 whilst I wasn't looking), but I try to follow it if I can.

bungeejumper wrote:Which reminds me. Back in my schooldays, a JCB operator working on some foundations in the school playing field was killed when his bucket hit an underground cable. The story we were told was that he was all right until he stepped down from the cab, because the rubber tyres had stopped the charge from going anywhere. At which point, his boots completed the circuit and he was instantly fried. (He should have jumped down, apparently, not climbed down.) Does that sound plausible to our resident experts? Would be good to know.
Well I suppose if he hit the live core(s) of the cable which would normally also require severing of any armouring (which should be earthed) and managed to do it such that the device protecting the cable didn't fuse/trip by shorting line to either Earth or neutral, and he also managed to leave the bucket electrically connected then he could have suffered a lethal shock as he got off, but only if his foot/feet made a fairly good electrical contact with the ground, which would mean that his boots/feet would probably have to have been wet (and probably the ground too).

I think it is implausible or at least quite unlikely. I met a guy once that went through an underground cable with a digger resulting in a very, very big bang and a power outage in the district. He had clearly shorted out the conductors of the cable.

C.

Dod101
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Re: garden socket

#89911

Postby Dod101 » October 22nd, 2017, 1:23 pm

I am told that my cable may simply be wired into a 15 amp socket in the house. Is that feasible?

Dod

bungeejumper
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Re: garden socket

#89932

Postby bungeejumper » October 22nd, 2017, 3:14 pm

Dod101 wrote:I am told that my cable may simply be wired into a 15 amp socket in the house. Is that feasible?

Anything's feasible, but it wouldn't necessarily be good. ;) An armoured cable ought to end in a spanner-fitted gland and a box that holds it really tight, and that properly allows the shielding cables to be earthed. (Like this: http://www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk/how-t ... ured-cable) Bunging it into the back of a standard socket and wall box wouldn't allow that, because (a) it isn't strong enough and (b) there probably wouldn't be enough room behind the backplate to do the job properly. Mind you, there are bodgers who'll simply strip away the metal shielding cables from the last four inches of the armoured cable and then connect the three/four inner cores to a socket, as you describe. Not all of them have killed anybody yet.

Anyways, I believe there are white plastic spur boxes junction boxes available that could take the armoured cable, terminate it correctly, and then allow you to connect it onward to a standard socket using household three core flex. Or deep, tough wall boxes that are man enough to let you make a direct connection. These days you'd be strongly encouraged to put a circuit breaker into it - but OK, your house was wired then, and this is now, so that's not your question.

BJ

bungeejumper
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Re: garden socket

#89934

Postby bungeejumper » October 22nd, 2017, 3:36 pm

csearle wrote:I think it is implausible or at least quite unlikely. I met a guy once that went through an underground cable with a digger resulting in a very, very big bang and a power outage in the district. He had clearly shorted out the conductors of the cable.

Thanks Chris. This guy was very definitely killed - we all got the day off school because the place was full of policemen! And the local papers carried the story for weeks. I just wasn't sure whether his demise would have been immediate upon hitting the cable, or whether it could have been avoided?

Ta for the info!

BJ

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Re: garden socket

#89942

Postby Slarti » October 22nd, 2017, 4:56 pm

bungeejumper wrote:Thanks Chris. This guy was very definitely killed - we all got the day off school because the place was full of policemen! And the local papers carried the story for weeks. I just wasn't sure whether his demise would have been immediate upon hitting the cable, or whether it could have been avoided?


It could have been avoided, especially if the digger was no longer in contact with the cables.

Some 30 years ago I worked at a warehouse in Basildon where they were building new ones on the land behind us.
Three times in a couple of weeks they managed to dig up supply cables with a JCB (always after lunch :shock: ) causing the power to us and the other units to go out.

Goodness what the cable runs were like, but nobody was hurt. Other than financially.

Slarti

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Re: garden socket

#89966

Postby DrFfybes » October 22nd, 2017, 6:57 pm

bungeejumper wrote:
sg31 wrote:In the end I actually pulled the cable up through the grass to remove it completely. I did need a bit of assistance in places but it was only about 3 inches deep. The grass soon recovered.

Live cable, three inches deep? Yikes, I aerate my lawn deeper than that. With a garden fork. :cry:
BJ


It's not just DIYers who take shortcuts, I've found telecoms fibre 4 inches under the grass verge, a yellow (fortunately) plastic gas pipe that appeared when we scraped off the top 2 inches of tarmac for resurfacing, and I know where there was (until last Monday) an 11kV cable only 200mm under a nearby footpath.

Fortunately the operative escaped with melted bootlaces.

Paul

bungeejumper
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Re: garden socket

#90018

Postby bungeejumper » October 23rd, 2017, 8:09 am

DrFfybes wrote:It's not just DIYers who take shortcuts, I've found telecoms fibre 4 inches under the grass verge

Happy memories of the time when the boys from Sky cabled up the village where I used to live. They turned up with their tunnelling and channeling gear one morning and set it to work, and within three days they'd gone through every sewer inflow pipe in the high street.

When the village hall (of which I was the Hon Sec) demanded to know what was going on and where the smell was coming from, they denied responsibility. We had the sewers videoed, and there was a shiny new cable breaking through the drains, over and over and over again. They paid up. ;)

BJ

midgesgalore
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Re: garden socket

#90260

Postby midgesgalore » October 24th, 2017, 12:54 am

Dod101

Just a different train of thought and sorry if these are covered already.
After all the hunting around and you say you cannot find the source of the power spur in your house that ends up at the tree then a couple of questions rattle around in my head.

Have you always lived at this property when the power spur was in use? My reading so far was you have lived there for > 20 years and had electrical work done to extend / modernise the building. Clearly you did not know if there was an electrical box at the tree in the garden as it was obscured from sight.
Before you came to live at your current property perhaps that part of the garden used to belong to a neighbouring owner, a different property, and the power cable maybe still source from there? Unlikely but the cable starts somewhere.

Considering the work you said was done all those years ago when the consumer unit hardware was upgraded, this is a point in time where extraneous cables could have been tied off. You might have been asked (or not) all those years ago what that circuit was for. If the contractor checked all the new wiring and everything seemed to work then, baffled, might just have left the garden cable hanging insulated behind the consumer unit. Maybe you got the apprentice that day.

You entertained the thought the cable can be a spur from something inside the house.
If that is the case the cable at the tree stump would still be live (if all your household circuits are live) and you don't say if there is a mysterious looking disabled isolation switch in the vicinity.

Did you check any outbuildings where there is power?
Sussexlad asked this question earlier in the thread and you said the garage was powered. Maybe you missed the point of his question as you reported you looked all round the building exterior - presumably to find the source side of this garden cable. You will not see it if it is buried from inside the outbuildings.
If the cable is not tied off behind the consumer unit (as above) perhaps the power is sourced from the garage or any powered garden shed however the treeward cable must have its own forward isolation switch (clearly disabled) from the outbuilding otherwise the cable would still be live? Have a look around for a mystery isolation box, that would be the "pick me" moment.

Hope you find the answer

midgesgalore

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Re: garden socket

#90268

Postby servodude » October 24th, 2017, 2:40 am

Do you have (or can you get access to) a metal detector?
They can be pretty useful for this kind of thing (depending on how deep things are buried)
e.g http://goneoutdoors.com/locate-electric ... 66911.html

Good luck
-sd

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Re: garden socket

#90282

Postby Dod101 » October 24th, 2017, 7:43 am

Thanks midgesgalore and for the metal detector idea.

I only moved to this house in June 2006 and a large extension was completed about 10 years before that so say 20 odd years ago. I had what had become an enormous (in terms of the size of my garden) evergreen in the middle of my lawn and had it removed a few weeks ago. The trunk is about 30 inches across and the entire base covered nearly 30 feet in diameter. The guy who removed said it would be about 20 years old as in the conditions it was in there was nothing to inhibit its growth. Its removal exposed this cable with one of these waterproof sockets on the end. The cable disappears into a mass of roots on the side of the trunk away from the house but I have not had the opportunity yet to try to follow the cable and see in which direction it heads from the tree.

I think it unlikely that it ends in the garage which is on the other side of the house and well away from the grass. In fact it would be easier for it to go to the utility room where the various electrical stuff is but I have looked there and cannot find anything remotely like what I am looking for. I propose to do a bit of digging around the trunk and see if I can discover a general direction for the cable and take it from there but I am told it is dead and not to worry. Chris much earlier in this thread gave me good reasons not just to leave it at that and anyway I am reluctant just to cut off the cable and forget about it. I have not been able to locate the previous owners to see if they can shed any light on the subject.

Dod

csearle
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Re: garden socket

#90442

Postby csearle » October 24th, 2017, 7:05 pm

Dod101 wrote:I am reluctant just to cut off the cable and forget about it.
I'm still looking forward to your eventual successful resolution of this. Electricians are lazy souls in the main and usually follow the path of least resistance (literally and figuratively). So I suspect the cable terminates (or used to) in your utility room. It might emerge within one of the accessory boxes hidden from immediate view.

As an interim you could terminate the cable in a different, less conspicuous, way. You could remove the waterproof socket outlet and terminate it instead into a suitably IP rated box which could be commited to a shallow grave, with a small service if you see fit. In this way you could lose the eyesore but not make it particularly unsafe were it to be inadvertently livened.

Chris

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Re: garden socket

#90735

Postby DrFfybes » October 25th, 2017, 7:21 pm

You could get it surveyed (or hire the kit and DIY).

A cable length tool will tell you how long it is (connects to the end and looks for some sort of echo from the cut end) or a cat and genny survey might be better for tracing it.

eg..

http://www.jewson.co.uk/tool-hire/surve ... ding-tool/
and
http://www.jewson.co.uk/tool-hire/surve ... generator/

or

https://www.hss.com/hire/p/cable-and-pi ... ire-pack-1

Paul

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Re: garden socket

#90746

Postby JMN2 » October 25th, 2017, 8:50 pm

All this faffing about! May I suggest tying the end of the wire to say a quad bike or a sit on lawn mower and driving towards the house and seeing where the wire comes up?

csearle
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Re: garden socket

#90980

Postby csearle » October 26th, 2017, 7:34 pm

JMN2 wrote:All this faffing about! May I suggest tying the end of the wire to say a quad bike or a sit on lawn mower and driving towards the house and seeing where the wire comes up?
...or connecting all cores together electrically and mechanically and burying the end! If anyone turns it on then something will fuse/trip. (Only kidding as the connection might corrode over decades and turn it back into a potential hazard next century.) C.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: garden socket

#91019

Postby AleisterCrowley » October 26th, 2017, 10:41 pm

Plug a long extension cable into the outside socket and bring it back into the house. Attach a mains radio tuned to something ghastly (Radio 1) at maximum volume, in a central location. Wander around flicking likely-looking switches until the radio comes on.

This may provide a clue, but lack of response doesn't mean it's definitely NOT live. Perhaps it's on a timer!

Be very careful.

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Re: garden socket

#97316

Postby moorfield » November 20th, 2017, 8:01 pm

Did you get anywhere with this Dod? I just seen a very similar question here! viewtopic.php?f=40&t=8527&p=97315#p97309

Dod101
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Re: garden socket

#150583

Postby Dod101 » July 6th, 2018, 5:57 pm

I think this is the same thread as last year. I have just got around to trying to prepare the ground around the tree which was removed for sowing grass in the Autumn, and have had to revisit the cable which is still sticking out of the ground. So far I have pulled it up about 5 feet or so from the tree stump but it is a very slow job because tree roots are above it and so I cannot just haul it out. It appears to be quite unprotected and is maybe about 12/18 inches below ground level. It is headed in the general direction of one of these trip switches for an external socket for stuff like garden tools or a water pump. It may of course change direction as I proceed.

It is a very slow job to extract it though because I need to keep cutting out tree roots and the idea of simply sealing it and burying the end seems most practical. Can that be done, please?

Dod


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