Fish House Main Cable?

[CFC]

Part P of the building regulations says electrical work must be carried out by trained competent persons who must issue a certificate after the work is completed, a load of old tosh really but if you want to be able to sell a house on in the future then any new electrical instalations will need to be fitted by an electrician.

 

[rabbut]

In the UK it is now a criminal offence to wire anything into the main fuse box unless you are a qualified electrician.

Really? I just thought you had to be a competent person as defined by the regs.

That was my take on it Andy, but as CFC pointed out above, my take may not be 100% correct. To sell a house, all wiring must have been done by an electrician, but I thought you also needed to be qualified to install it in the first place now? Perhapse CFC could clarify here? Welcome back CFC BTW, haven't seen you about for a while

*edited for spelling

 

[CFC]

Yep, basicly you cannot do anything much more than change a light bulb or fuse in your own home any more, anything more technical than that should be done by a qualified electrician and if not could cause problems when it comes to selling the house.

Personally when i come to sell my house i will just remove the electrics that go to the fish house so they wont be a problem.

 

[Gun]

The plaster board is bought..no going back. I mentioned using this around 2 weeks ago..without any returned warning. What about a thick coating of moisture proof paint?

"so you may need to get the electricity company out to upgrade your supply cables to the house "

Sounds expensive..budget may not cover this (although will be done if absolutely nesseccary). What is the alternative...running the fish house on around no more than 100amps?

 

[rabbut]

The currents I calculated above assumed all tanks being ran on internal power filters with good lighting and room heating. If you go with sumps or air driven filters, acctual current draw will be far less. The issue with recomending a cable at this stage is that we don't know what equipment you are running, and thus the current you are going to be drawing. Depending on the equipment, you could probibly get away with as little as 50watts cable, but it could also need 200watt. The price between the two will be a huge difference, but installing the cheapest may leave you short on power and could constitute a fire hazord. At this point, more information on the equipment in the set-up is realy nessisary to go further

 

[BINKSY]

The main fuse to the house, which will be next to your electric meter, will more than likely be a 100A fuse, so if you use more than that from your consumer unit that fuse will blow, and you will need to contact the electric board to come out and change it, which they will charge you for.


You dont need to be a qualified electrician to do electrical work in your house but you must comply with the part p regs, have a read here
.


Cheers Gordon

 

[andywg]

Sounds expensive..budget may not cover this (although will be done if absolutely nesseccary). What is the alternative...running the fish house on around no more than 100amps?

If your fish house gets to running anywhere near 100 Amps it will be pulling a hell of a lot of juice. How on earth are you going to run into using 23,000W of energy in a fish house?

Insulate well and use a space heater to heat the whole room. CFC has one which at most uses 2kW when on. Then use an air pump for most of the filtration, thus allowing all the tanks to be powered off of (assuming a huge air pump) 1kW.

Assuming you aren't running Metal Halide driven SPS farm reefs you should be able to light the tanks fairly well for 2kW.

So, above you have heat, light and filtration for 5kW which is a current of 21.74A on a 230W supply.

 

[spesh]

volt drop over a 50m run may become a problem too.

Remember that this needs to be RCD protected as its outside the equipotential bonding zone (ie the house) and as such should really have an external earth rod of its own also. Make sure that your consumer unit (fuse board) is plastic as using metal outside of the zone is not 'best practice'. Household electrical work is now a minefield thanks to Part P, rather glad i do industrial/heavy commercial only lol. Be aware, also, that the IEE Wiring Regs have just changed (enforcable from July) so any work needs to be compliant with BS7671:2008 (17th Edition).



But, as mentioned before these questions should not really be asked as a compentent person (ie qualified and time served electrician) should be able to do this job standing on they're head. I'd be interested to see what your electrician has specified for the job though

 

[Gun]

"I'd be interested to see what your electrician has specified for the job though"

Same here buddy...I haven't a clue myself. As far as I know he has done electrics for over 20 years (as far back as I can remember) for various members of the family...as for being qualified, well I've never asked him.

I just want to get my fish house up and running asap and things like this is really slowing me down Oh well, at least I get to start the wool in the walls (insulation) this weekend (took Monday off also ) Going to have a go at working out the electricity use aswell.

 

[spesh]

I've come across many jobs done by people who've "done electrics for ages" in the past that have been horrendous, even one that involved a total loss of the building due to a fire that started electrically. Not saying this person fits in that category but you do have a responsibility as part of building regs to ensure that a "competent person" carries out the work

http/www.competentperson.co.uk/

 

[Gun]

Ok, thank's for the advice, spesh

 

[dane261]

im in the process of building my fish house to house all the plecs as CFC said insulation you need to get it right i was lucky i got givin a load 140mm thick and as fo heating the room im using a mobile air con unit on a timer comes on twice a day for an hour and are cheap to run.

ps for the people that dont understand about the a/c unit if you dont vent it it will heat the room and the cooling side will keep the condensation down to an absoloute min.





Dane

 

[Gun]

Hi dane261

You have any pics of your progress with the fish house? May see a few ideas for mine Yeah, me and my dad decided that some sort of insulation was needed. It's bought and up in the shed, ready to be fitted (to 2 of the walls) tomorrow.

It looks like the walls are going to end up like this...

Plywood lengths (outside)
3X3 framework
Wool Insulation (between framework)
Maybe a plastic sheeting of some sort (pinned to framework)
Plaster Board (standard)
Plaster
Paint

This is my first attempt at anything like this and I know I may have made a few mistakes with the choice of materials. But hey, come on guys...this is a fairly decent wall..innit? Think it will hold the heat well? Will a good choice of paint keep the moisture out? Is plaster needed at all?

Ahhh questions, questions, questions lol!

 

[mike os]

couple of questions

how many tanks?
how much water (about)?
how will you light... each tank or just room lights?
tank heaters or room heater?

 

[BINKSY]

I would think using plasterboard, and then putting a skim of plaster on would be a good idea, as you do not want any moisture to get to the plasterboard. If it was me then seal the plaster with a mis coat baically white emulsion watered down, then i would use a bathroom or exterior paint as this should be moisture resistant once on.




Cheers Gordon