POWER POINTS

Regarding Rob Hawkins fitting electrics to his garage project (CM, August 2018), having worked as an electrician for more than 50 years, I would be reluctant to fit plastic sockets, switches and exposed cables in a working environment as they can easily be damaged if anything falls against them.

When my brother-in-law and I built his garage, it was wired with plastic conduits, single cables and metal accessories – with this type of installation there is less chance of damage and the cost would not be that much greater.the consumer unit (fuseboard) should be metal, as stated in the Electrical Regulations, complete with a 30Ma RCD main switch, which is an ideal starting point for this type of installation. If you want to go down the route of even further protection you could use galvanised metal conduits and RCBOS (Residual Current Circuit Breakers with Overcurrent Protection) fitted in the consumer unit to protect each individual circuit instead of a MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker), and with the 30Ma RCD main switch replaced by a mains isolator. And if it’s a metal structure, don’t forget to earth it. Ken Pugh