Power and data to shed
Discussion
I'm planning on running power and data to my shed.
My question is what cable I should be running. The shed is approx 25m from the house. I have purchased 30m of 20mm flexible ducting that is going under ground with slabs on top.
Should I be running armoured power cable AND armoured data down the same trunking, or if one cable is armoured can I get away with standard cable for the other?
I'm only looking to have lights and a couple of double sockets in the shed. I need the data to hook up a security camera.
What have others used? Any recommendations or is there a better way to do this?
My question is what cable I should be running. The shed is approx 25m from the house. I have purchased 30m of 20mm flexible ducting that is going under ground with slabs on top.
Should I be running armoured power cable AND armoured data down the same trunking, or if one cable is armoured can I get away with standard cable for the other?
I'm only looking to have lights and a couple of double sockets in the shed. I need the data to hook up a security camera.
What have others used? Any recommendations or is there a better way to do this?
Done exactly this, although just a few metres longer.
Armoured cable buried down almost a metre (took an age to dig out), filled this in and laid a Cat6 cable. For most of the length it was inside a 20mm wide plastic duct. This cable was routed through the house and under the floor to the main box (30s semi allowed this), same with the ethernet cable. I considered powerline but wanted the 100% uptime/reliability and the highest speed possible.
Mine was all buried under a series of planters along the side of the garden.
For the Cat6, I actually buried three separate cables as I wanted a backup, turns out none was ever needed. Operated like this for over 5 years and sold the whole house & setup with everything still working like the day I put it in.
You say two sockets - consider if the room needs heating air/con. No harm in putting in a few extra points to allow these types of devices to run safely.
Armoured cable buried down almost a metre (took an age to dig out), filled this in and laid a Cat6 cable. For most of the length it was inside a 20mm wide plastic duct. This cable was routed through the house and under the floor to the main box (30s semi allowed this), same with the ethernet cable. I considered powerline but wanted the 100% uptime/reliability and the highest speed possible.
Mine was all buried under a series of planters along the side of the garden.
For the Cat6, I actually buried three separate cables as I wanted a backup, turns out none was ever needed. Operated like this for over 5 years and sold the whole house & setup with everything still working like the day I put it in.
You say two sockets - consider if the room needs heating air/con. No harm in putting in a few extra points to allow these types of devices to run safely.
Mr Pointy said:
If you are running the cable in ducting neither needs to be armoured & both can go in the same duct - especially if you use screened network cable (6a or 7 if you want to get fancy). Other posters will howl in outrage, but it will work just fine.
Yep, that's what I've done and it works perfectly even over an ~85m run.thebraketester said:
Could you not use the EV type cable with power and network combined?
It's a bit harder to split out the power & network cabling connections as the network cores end up inside the consumer unit. it's not an issue if you are connecting them to a current transformer in the CU but if you want to break them out onto an RJ45 it gets a bit illegal.Mr Pointy said:
thebraketester said:
Could you not use the EV type cable with power and network combined?
It's a bit harder to split out the power & network cabling connections as the network cores end up inside the consumer unit. it's not an issue if you are connecting them to a current transformer in the CU but if you want to break them out onto an RJ45 it gets a bit illegal.JoshSm said:
I'd wonder if a 20mm flexible duct would just be a bit narrow & flex too much to easily draw the cables through?
I'd lean towards a larger smooth walled rigid duct with swept bends, more like the telecom ones.
You'll rarely complain that a duct is too big or too straight.
I missed that: 20mm is just about enough for a network cable & there's not much chance of getting the power down it as well.I'd lean towards a larger smooth walled rigid duct with swept bends, more like the telecom ones.
You'll rarely complain that a duct is too big or too straight.
I'd bury the armoured cable (ideally a bit bigger than you think you need!). Then put in a duct for ethernet. I personally use 40mm o/d duct for most small wire things, it has masses of space, and it's easy to pull through more wires later. Ideally there should be some separation, but as previous posters have said, it works just fine, ethernet is pretty resilient, so you can shove them both in the same skinny hole.
EV cable is expensive, don't use it here.
EV cable is expensive, don't use it here.
Griffith4ever said:
Mr Pointy said:
If you are running the cable in ducting neither needs to be armoured & both can go in the same duct - especially if you use screened network cable (6a or 7 if you want to get fancy). Other posters will howl in outrage, but it will work just fine.
Agreed.I used powerline adapters to my garage, the drop off in speed was huge. The house has 300/300mb internet but I was only seeing around 1mb at the garage about 60m away. I used them in the house for some things as well and they weren't great when it came to reliability, having to be reconnected all the time. I would go for the cable buried and probably just send the two down the same tunnel. As mentioned, go for the bigger bore as well with sweeping bends.
I think potential problems include:
The duct may get water in it, the ethernet cable may not survive that long term?
If you generate a lot of noise on the mains cable, you may couple that to the ethernet. It could get a bit interesting if for instance you run a crude welder or switch big motors?
You might need to think about grounding?
It's one of those things that will probably almost always be no trouble at all, but some of us have some understanding of why it might go bad.
There are good reasons for some industrial applications having ethernet kit that costs a lot more than the PC World stuff.
Worst case, I'd want to be blowing up a cheap router at either end, not a £3k laptop workstation.
I'm considering a data cable between sheds, in an above ground conduit also serving some low voltage lights for the path.
I do have a mate with FTTS. Fibre To The Shed.
The duct may get water in it, the ethernet cable may not survive that long term?
If you generate a lot of noise on the mains cable, you may couple that to the ethernet. It could get a bit interesting if for instance you run a crude welder or switch big motors?
You might need to think about grounding?
It's one of those things that will probably almost always be no trouble at all, but some of us have some understanding of why it might go bad.
There are good reasons for some industrial applications having ethernet kit that costs a lot more than the PC World stuff.
Worst case, I'd want to be blowing up a cheap router at either end, not a £3k laptop workstation.
I'm considering a data cable between sheds, in an above ground conduit also serving some low voltage lights for the path.
I do have a mate with FTTS. Fibre To The Shed.
OutInTheShed said:
I think potential problems include:
The duct may get water in it, the ethernet cable may not survive that long term?
If you generate a lot of noise on the mains cable, you may couple that to the ethernet. It could get a bit interesting if for instance you run a crude welder or switch big motors?
You might need to think about grounding?
It's one of those things that will probably almost always be no trouble at all, but some of us have some understanding of why it might go bad.
There are good reasons for some industrial applications having ethernet kit that costs a lot more than the PC World stuff.
Worst case, I'd want to be blowing up a cheap router at either end, not a £3k laptop workstation.
I'm considering a data cable between sheds, in an above ground conduit also serving some low voltage lights for the path.
I do have a mate with FTTS. Fibre To The Shed.
You've quickly jumped from "power and data to the shed" - to "welding and 3k workstations" :-)The duct may get water in it, the ethernet cable may not survive that long term?
If you generate a lot of noise on the mains cable, you may couple that to the ethernet. It could get a bit interesting if for instance you run a crude welder or switch big motors?
You might need to think about grounding?
It's one of those things that will probably almost always be no trouble at all, but some of us have some understanding of why it might go bad.
There are good reasons for some industrial applications having ethernet kit that costs a lot more than the PC World stuff.
Worst case, I'd want to be blowing up a cheap router at either end, not a £3k laptop workstation.
I'm considering a data cable between sheds, in an above ground conduit also serving some low voltage lights for the path.
I do have a mate with FTTS. Fibre To The Shed.
Man wants power to shed - Nothing fancy - DIY - 2.5mm Twin and earth and cat 5e (outdoor) onwards in ducting , burried, job done.
Man wants to weld, plus install a server cabinet in shed. 6mm SWA (armoured cable) burried (no need for ducting) - plus outdoor ethernet cable burried in small duct.
Kind of worlds apart tbf :-)
I'd suggest running SWA to the shed for power - the previous owners of our property installed all of their outdoor lighting system in PVC conduit and it makes a bit of spark/trips the RCD when you dig through it (have since removed it all). A reel of SWA is pretty cheap from eBay or TLC Direct too.
I built a summer house to use as an office and one of my regrets was to not run data to it properly - I looked at getting and armoured fibre cable made with the required ethernet adaptors at either end, but decided to be lazy and point an outdoor wireless access point at it from the house. The access point probably cost as much as doing it 'proper' but is pretty flakey. Should probably see if I get better luck with powerline adaptors thinking about it!
I built a summer house to use as an office and one of my regrets was to not run data to it properly - I looked at getting and armoured fibre cable made with the required ethernet adaptors at either end, but decided to be lazy and point an outdoor wireless access point at it from the house. The access point probably cost as much as doing it 'proper' but is pretty flakey. Should probably see if I get better luck with powerline adaptors thinking about it!
OutInTheShed said:
I think potential problems include:
The duct may get water in it, the ethernet cable may not survive that long term?
If you generate a lot of noise on the mains cable, you may couple that to the ethernet. It could get a bit interesting if for instance you run a crude welder or switch big motors?
You might need to think about grounding?
It's one of those things that will probably almost always be no trouble at all, but some of us have some understanding of why it might go bad.
There are good reasons for some industrial applications having ethernet kit that costs a lot more than the PC World stuff.
Worst case, I'd want to be blowing up a cheap router at either end, not a £3k laptop workstation.
I'm considering a data cable between sheds, in an above ground conduit also serving some low voltage lights for the path.
I do have a mate with FTTS. Fibre To The Shed.
If you're worried about water ingress, specify duct grade cable, or even gel filled, for networking. Tend to buy mine from Kenable. I don't usually mind terminating Cat6A, but get filled Cat 6A (which I have run to my shed for both ethernet and modbus applications) isn't the most fun.The duct may get water in it, the ethernet cable may not survive that long term?
If you generate a lot of noise on the mains cable, you may couple that to the ethernet. It could get a bit interesting if for instance you run a crude welder or switch big motors?
You might need to think about grounding?
It's one of those things that will probably almost always be no trouble at all, but some of us have some understanding of why it might go bad.
There are good reasons for some industrial applications having ethernet kit that costs a lot more than the PC World stuff.
Worst case, I'd want to be blowing up a cheap router at either end, not a £3k laptop workstation.
I'm considering a data cable between sheds, in an above ground conduit also serving some low voltage lights for the path.
I do have a mate with FTTS. Fibre To The Shed.
For SWA Cat6 has recently been Quickbit.
For 3-core SWA, either Quickbit or Superlec.
Both Quickbit and Superlec will do SWA cables cut to length.
Earthing the power side is really something for his sparky...
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