Getting power to my garage??

[skydivezone]

Hi folks, I might be on a non starter here but would appreciate it if anyone can steer me or put me out of my misery!!

My garage is one in a bank of garages about 200 metres away from my house so running a lead isn't an option and there's no power to any of them.
I'd love to be able to have power in the for all those little things like keeping my motorcycle battery charged etc. Is there a way that the electric company would supply power to my garage (or anyone else for that matter) and add it to my home account??

Hope I've explained this well enough and thanks in advance for any pointers

All the best


Andy

 

[baz1968]

The only way to know for sure is to contact your local electricity supply board and ask them to come out and do a site survey, this is usually free and they will tell you what's required and what supply services are located nearby. There are a few things to consider.

You will need the services of a competant electrician to provide protective equipment (mains board, rcd breakers, enclosures, etc) and to be able to provide your authority with test and completion certificates.

There is a connection charge from your supply authority for connecting into any underground services. My local supplier charges £640.00 for every connection (this is just a splice into there service cable).

You will need to arrange with a contractor, or, carry out yourself any civils, i.e. digging tenches and backfilling, etc.

Who owns the land that will need digging up? Will they allow you to do this? And finally, this supply will be separate from your house metering so it will need it's own meter and will include all the charges that go with your home supply.

It's not impossible but very difficult. Does any of the garages have power? Do you own or rent the garage? If you rent you could try asking the owner if he would cover the costs but i'm sure he would want to increase the rent to try and make back the costs of installing power

Hope this helps

 

[Cremeegg]

looks like an expensive operation.

Technically you could use 4mm SWA but you'd be limited to 1kW load and the cable alone would be around £250. Double the load more than doubles the cost as you'd need 10mm cable. Triple the load to a realistic, but still not massive, 3kW would need 16mm cable to get over the voltage drop and that'd be close on £1000 for the cable alone.

Don't forget 200m is one heck of a lot of digging and you'd need someones consent to dig unless it's all your own land.

How about a PV panel to trickle charge your motorcycle battery? Much cheaper - and no digging!

 

[skydivezone]

Thanks guys to both of you for taking the time to respond. I don't know what a PV panel is???

I wasn't really even considering trying to use power from the house to be honest just because of the distance and digging, overcoming paths etc.

I wondered how they go about it when they build a new house? I guess that the "mains" is under the ground and can be tapped into from various access points?. I suppose this was more the option I was hoping to explore but didn't really know how or where, or who has to do it.

I'll call Southern Electric and see if they can steer me

Andy

 

[Adam_151]

PV panel = photovoltaic panel... an (electric) solar panel

guess that the "mains" is under the ground and can be tapped into from various access points?. I suppose this was more the option I was hoping to explore but didn't really know how or where, or who has to do it.

More a less, the supply cable will run about under the pavements, etc (the DNO will have maps), to connect you up, they dig an access to it, and joint onto it, and run a service cable to a service cut out and a meter in the building being supplied.

Can get quite expensive... cable isn't that cheap, they'll need a digging team, a live jointing team, permits to dig footpaths, etc... ask them for a quote and go from there!

 

[skydivezone]

I've called Southern Electric and they seemed very helpful and have started the ball rolling to get a survey done and a price. I've got a nasty feeling that, for all the reasons that you've mentioned, it'll not be cheap! The PV thing sounds interesting though. This might sound stupid buuuuuuuuuuut......can these panels actually put a supply to a plug socket for example? Or are we really talking about they just supply a battery?

My wish list is the following ......

To be able to plug in my battery optimiser for the motorcycle
Power a light
Fit an alarm
Electric door

However, the first one is all I NEED to achieve, the others would be nice to be able to do. Would mains electricity be the only option for all of these?

Thanks again guys for taking the time to assist me, I really appreciate it

Andy[/i]

 

[Cremeegg]

I'm not a PV expert but you often see this sort of thing advertised in the Sunday supplements as a car battery trickle charger that you leave on the rear parcel shelf.

You could certainly use one for a motorcycle battery; it could also trickle charge another battery to provide some (very) basic lighting and possible to power an alarm. The loading for a garage door is far too much for a domestic scale PV panel. I suspect that getting one big enough to power a door opener via a battery is going to be more expensive than digging a new mains supply. Perhaps others can confirm.

 

[mdbalson]

If you do go down the new mains supply route, ask the owners of the other garages, if any of them want power in their garages, as this may help to reduce the cost of a new supply, as the cost of instalation may be shared between the others who want power.


For a alarm you could run it off of a small 12v car battery, so you could have two small car batteries, have 1 connected powering the alarm & 1 as a spare in the house to recharge. As this is what some one I know did in the haner, where he & a couple of other people stored their microlights.

 

[Lectrician]

It could of course possibly be an overhead service? In which case, likely to be a little cheaper.

 

[big-all]

my dad had a 12v electric door installed
he wanted a backup and lights so i installed a car battery [40 ah ish]with the same connector as the supplied battery

installed a push button micro switch in the door frame

supply goes battery fuse door switch overide switch [so you can close the doors and keep the lights on]

150ma invertor tripple mains switch[short lead plugged in to the inverter naughty i know ]so you can use the socket for 150w mains

this set up allows up to 3 lights to be switched on localy and turned off by the door so you come off the street into the 50m drive to the garages you press the door open on the key fob and it gives you light in the distance to see by


the car battery unplugs and supplys both power and the door when the door battery is on charge

i think the set up works for a month or so before recharging but would need to ask my dad!!!!

costs around £100 for materials

 

[skydivezone]

Some great ideas coming out here. Wouldn't it be joy if the power were overhead??!! In Florida, all domestic power is above ground which is scary as hell when the plane drops you in the wrong place and the parachute ain't taking you where you want to go!! But I can see how easy it is to complete new hook ups etc.

A few months ago I got home from my night shift at teh fire station to find one of my motorbikes missing, hence the reason I'm so keen to sort my garage issue. There is a little old lady who's house backs onto my garage so I've also thought about offering her ten quid a month to just plug in an extension lead to power the charger.

A few options then it seems, let's hope the quote from Southern Electric isn't silly!

Andy

 

[Cremeegg]

Depending on the length of the little old ladies garden and the size of the DNO quote you might want to run a supply from her house which you could always get metered. Fine - until she moves!