The Medway Handyman
wibbled on Sunday 25 October 2009 21:26

Tim W wrote:

Or is making use of the security light power feed the only way?

Not the only way. I could do as you suggest, but due to the layout of the
house I'd have to run a cable under the bathroom floor.

I take it your proposed route would be up the wall to the ceiling level,
hence the bathroom?

Can you not go left or right and hit another room? Not intending to doubt
you, but thinking more of the occupant (including future ones) - a SELV
cable at 12V or whatever doing weird things is a lot less likely to turn
into an "issue" down the line.

What about diving in the corner of a window frame (a Sky dish installer
favourite) - sorry hard to comment without knowing the house in question.



The only tricky bit AFAICS is putting a 13A socket on the end of the
lighting circuit. People normally use 2A or 5A sockets for
differentiation purposes. That would be shafted if the wall-warts
plug is built in though.

It is one of theose 'fat plug' type wall warts e.g the plug & PSU are one
unit. Like a Nokia charger.

The one thing that could go wrong is that someone down the line
thinks: "Hmm 13A socket, I'll run me welder off that...". Clear
labelling as to the circuit origin would be a must (ie: "This is fed
by downstairs lights breaker, max load 1A" or something...).

Good point - thanks.

The other thing I think would be worth mentioning, if you do go down this
route: I would regard it as essential that that circuit is backed by an
RCD - is the security light feed already covered by one?

Sooner or later, labels, or not, someone is going to try plugging a
radio/lawnmower or something else into this for use outside. And for those
sort of loads, they'll probably get away with it without tripping the
lighting breaker.

The risk is of course very tiny, but you probably wouldn't want to be
associated with it...

Cheers

Tim

--
Tim Watts

This space intentionally left blank...