External Socket

[Ecne]

Hi Folks
I see there are some well informed contributors on this site and I am hoping they might have an answer for me.

I visited some friends who are involved with a voluntary organisation in the UK. The have a premises where they have a van parked up. The van has a battery charger connected to the mains. There is a trailing lead to a outdoor type socket on an extension cord. Not armoured cable or anything fancy, just cable from an extension lead. This runs around tied to some fencing, into the building where it connects to another extension lead that has one of those plug in rcds.

It would be fine if you were putting it there for a few hours, but this has been in place for more than a year. I was told that when the "Powers that be" were asked to upgrade it to a more proper install they came back with the answer that it was ok as there was an rcd.

Can that be true? There must be something in UK regulations that requires outdoor cables be protected, but as I said it would be ok for a short period so maybe not.

I would be interested in any comment or thoughts
RGDS. C

 

[EddieM]

Don't know about Ireland, but you're right about it not being right in the UK.

 

[Ecne]

Don't know about Ireland, but you're right about it not being right in the UK.

It would fall fowl of general safety law here even without relying on wiring rules. It may well be the same in the UK. I was curious as to whether there are UK regulations that cover this.

As I am an expert on Part P of the UK building regs having spent at least ten minutes reading about them on Google I can see that it would surely fail under those. However they don't apply as the premises is not a Dwelling. Does it actually break any other regulation though? It must surly

 

[EddieM]

It would class as a permanent installation.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Apart from anything else they should have the RCD at the first socket.

 

[JohnW2]

It would class as a permanent installation.

Indeed - but as the OP was implying, if it were in the UK, it's unlikely that premises occupied by a voluntary organisation would come within the scope of Part P (unless someone lived in the building).

Kind Regards, John

 

[Ecne]

Hi All,
It is a premises in the UK and nobody lives there. I would rather not say who, just for the sake of their reputation and I was just a visitor.

We had a similar need to connect a van to the mains here. I am told that there is a section of the Irish wiring regulations that covers caravan pitches and we had to comply with that. Cable was buried. I think it is the heavy stuff with the wire shield in it. There is something like a mini consumer unit where you connect on.

In Ireland we have also had RCD on all socket circuits for as long as I can remember. I am told that that was not the practice in the UK. I didn't look at the consumer unit in the UK. Curiously I have seen very few of the RCD socket adapters here, presumably because we have the consumer unit one.
Regds C