sometimes only a few years, but the sheath has been damaged and waters got in
Outside Mains Sockets
- Thread starter Distorted Vision
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sometimes only a few years, but the sheath has been damaged and waters got in
you mostly work on industrial sites though, where damage is more likley to occur.
I don't think that is necessarily true as more consideration is given to the method of erection than it is in the domestic setting
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I never figured out how this internal SWA joint at a domestic garage CU feeding a "summerhouse" outbuilding got so bad.. As the cable colours suggest it cannot be that old????
Unless "Bob The Builder" left the unterminated, unprotected end of the SWA, open to the elements for a long period before he got round to putting the roof on the external, remote, unconnected garage structure?
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Spoon
Well-known member
IMO, if the SWA needs additional protection, you could put it in metal conduit.... I'm sure there are extra measures that could be added. Is it needed? Who knows... See my post 17
Or the OP may come back and give extra info...
Seen quite a few rusted out SWA's in domestic properties outside, garden and pond lighting being the favorites, a lot down to poor installation, leaky fittings or wrong glands
Without eyes on it is difficult as no one size fits all in the past I have installed SWA in conduit, deep channel, heavy duty cable capping to suggest a few ways
makes you wonder if the quality of the galvanising has declined.
I used to do a lot of work in Salcombe, which suffers from salty sea air, corrosive enough to reduce a standard outside floodlight (the black painted aluminium cast type) to a furry mess of corrosion in a year. An old school I used to work on a lot, converted to flats, had all the incoming supplies in an a short tunnel, door one end, open to the sea air the other end. The conversion to flats was old enough that all the swa submains were 2 core with armour as earth. The DNO fuse board was rusty metal - I asked them to inspect it, the sub main switch fused isolators were ok, and all the swa was fine, apart from the end at an old lamp post that had been leaking water for at least a decade. But that was all old stuff and properly terminated. Likewise a far newer block of flats I maintained, seaview below. Which brings us back to quality of materials and workmanship. https://maps.app.goo.gl/5uCXwdUmRBWrzwiQ9
The question is where do you stop. Armour is designed for exactly this sort of Job, so using the better glands for environmental protection, to me you have to put cost against any project.
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