Shed power, battery, inverter, solar charge -practical?

[captainzep]

Getting power down to my shed looks like it might be tricky. Not enough outlets from the consumer unit, cabling 25 yards through the garden, electrician cost etc.

My shed has 2 sections; a small 5x7ft tools/gardening 'room' and a bigger 7x9ft 'room' which I've panelled, insulated, floored and yesterday painted.

I'm thinking about best use of the bigger room and this will involve some form of lighting and possibly power, although requirements would be modest and short-term (no power tools, microwaves, kettles etc)

Initially I wondered about 12v battery powered lighting with a 5w solar panel trickle charging. But were I to add in a 600w inverter I could run better lighting, a radio, maybe a small surplus TV and my old PS2 could I not? -Albeit for short periods? Set-up costs look approx £150.

What do people think?

[RedLeicester]

25 yards isn't very far. Just get a sparky to take it off the feed behind the metre, put in a new ikkle consumer unit, and lay the cable.... done. Our shed is 120 yards away, our leccy gate 250, no big deal.

[captainzep]

Yep. Thanks. I think the spark may the best option.

Having delved further into this, looked at the pros and cons, the solar/battery/inverter science, in hindsight my initial idea seems to be worthy of an honorary degree (with Honours) from the University of Turbo Belmford Spazbridge.

[RedLeicester]

:lol:

It's good in theory, not quite as simple in practice. We're thinking of getting power down to the garden store, but that's yet another 150m run.... horrid horrid cable costs!

[Timmy35]

I recommend you buy a copy of this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1907215018/ref=...

The costings are pretty accurate. But to be honest use Ebay and you can get the compnents for a decent little off grid setup amazignly cheaply.

Don't buy the rip-off packages sold by certain chain DIY stores either!

[DavidY]

Red Leicester

I've just bought 1 x 100m 6mm and 1 x 100mm 4mm both armoured, for my new garage block (4mm is to run generator power back to the house, I get a lot of power cuts). Both came from tlc-direct and were much more reasonably priced than I expected. Had to pay an extra £20 for shipping though because of the weight.

davidy

[RedLeicester]

Yep TLC are quite handy. Still gets scary when you start demanding it's up to running hefty shed kit, and you end up with 150m 100A runs!