This week's problem on my son's house is that all the power has failed
to a set of outbuildings.
The cabling is confusing and has obviously been modified by the previous
owner of the house who was, perhaps, a little eccentric in his approach
to colour coding.
Armoured cable leaves the house and appears in 2 boxes feeding some
lights, a garage and the outbuilding area. Power seems to be leaving
these boxes via armoured cables, but no power is arriving at the
outbuildings.

We suspect there may be an underground junction box that fed a pond pump
in the past, but digging has not located this. We have consulted an
electrician who said the cost effective way would be to replace the
cable. His estimate was beyond our budget.

What is the best way for us to locate the cables underground? Is a cheap
metal detector likely to be the best bet or work at all? I can't find
mine under all the junk in the garage, so is there a best, cheap type to
look for or are they all much the same?

We have spent some time in the undergrowth poking around. I have 15
bites on my legs as a result.

--
Bill