Installing power in the shed

My shed, which is fairly large, had no power. Combine that with small windows, and you get a dark room that can barely be used for anything but storage. However, many years ago, the shed used to have power. It was just in such a sorry state that I was not daring enough to connect it to the mains. Instead, I ripped it all out and replaced it with a newer, more proper installation. This involves everything from a small distribution box with a ground fault detector and a few breakers to installing power sockets and lights. Connecting power to a shed starts by figuring out how it gets there, usually through a cable. I spend a few days digging to trace the existing cables.

The holes to follow underground cables

I mostly resorted to digging, because none of the cables in my home or in the shed matched each other. This probably meant that there was a junction box that I did not know about, or that the cable just ended somewhere underground. Turns out, both! The broken box can be seen here:

A broken underground junction box

But I also found a connected, three-phase cable running from the inside of my home to the shed! It just wasn’t connected to a breaker (only the ground fault!), so my strategy of “following each breaker” missed it. But this made a massive difference in the required effort and cost to properly connect me shed, which I probably would not have done without this cable existing.

I put together a shopping basket at an online electronics supplier, checked my sanity by asking a few friends about their opinions, and bought the supplies. I then proceeded to spend much more time than I expected installing it all. Infact, at the time of writing, its still not fully done. This are the steps I took to install power:

1. Wiring the distribution box

Wiring the new distribution box for the shed

2. Mount the box, and start mounting/wiring all sockets.

Starting the wiring of sockets

3. More mounting/wiring of all sockets.

More wiring of sockets

4. More mounting/wiring… lights this time..

More wiring..

5. Happy days! There is light!

Lights!

As you can see, my shed is a big mess, and doesn’t even have a proper floor. But atleast it can be used for more than being a mess right now. A few tools and a sturdy workbench go a very long way. All-in-all this project has taken me the hour-equivalent of 5 workdays, the costs breakdown as follows:

Thats a lot of money… Cable is expensive :) But its probably worth it.