Outdoor and garden electrics

A garden office, workshop or garage that's going to have lights, sockets and a heater needs its own circuit and its own small board, not an extension lead through a window, and not a spur off the nearest socket.

• Steel wire armoured cable, sized for the load and the run length so voltage drop stays within limits.
• Buried at a sensible depth with warning tape above it, and the route recorded so nobody puts a spade through it in two years.
• A small consumer unit in the building, so a fault out there doesn't take the house out.
• The earthing arrangement thought about properly, outbuildings on a PME supply sometimes need a separate earth electrode rather than the house's earth.

It's more work than a spur, and it's the difference between something that passes an inspection and something that gets coded on one.

Restraint reads as expensive here. Lighting a couple of things well, a path, a tree, the front of the house, looks far better than flooding the whole garden.

• Warm colour temperature outdoors. Cold white makes a garden look like a car park.
• Light downwards or across, not up into windows and neighbours' bedrooms.
• PIR for security lighting, dusk-to-dawn or a timer for the decorative circuits, on separate switching.
• Fittings with a real IP rating and stainless or marine-grade fixings, particularly anywhere exposed.

A hot tub is a substantial continuous load, often close to what a domestic shower draws, and it needs a dedicated circuit with its own RCD protection and a weatherproof isolator within reach of the tub.

Worth checking the tub's actual requirements before the base goes down: some need a 32A supply, and finding that out after the patio is laid is an expensive discovery.

Almost always water, and almost always at a joint. Cheap enclosures with the gland fitted the wrong way up, or a cable entering from the top so water runs straight down inside it.

Cable glanded from below, correct gaskets, accessories rated for their position, and a drip loop where the cable leaves the wall. Small details, but they're why one installation looks fine after ten winters and another is tripping an RCD after one.