Electricity

Yesterday it occurred to me that I should be able to add mains sockets to the van without too much difficulty. I mentioned in yesterday's post about curtains (as opposed to the other half a dozen posts about curtains) that I was going to look into this.

Today I am blogging from inside Tyrion with my laptop charging on one of his mains sockets.

I don't yet have a consumer unit with RCD and MCBs in, but I have my eye on one or two on eBay and it will be a simple thing to add to what I have already, but here's what I have got...

I found a new shop in Bradford called Dickinson Caravans and as their website suggests, their accessory socket has hundreds (if not thousands) of parts and accessories for caravans and campers. I had a decent browse around looking for ideas and realised that I could start off with something that's effectively an extension lead with style (to paraphrase Toy Story).

I picked up a 16A plug and socket for seven pounds and considered a length of orange 16A mains cable. When I saw the price I decided I would probably have something at home that would do.

Wickes set me up with a switched double socket and mounting box for less than three pounds and as this was the end of my shopping means that the whole installation has cost just under a tenner.

In the garage at home I found a ten metre (ish) length of 2.5mm three core cable which if my memory serves me should have a rating of around 20 to 25 amps. As mains hook-ups on sites are 16A and the standard mains socket is 13A, this cable will serve more than adequately. It's not orange, so I hope sites don't have a rule about that.

I fitted the cable to the sockets first then pushed the mounting box against it to make sure it would close. The cable is quite thick so I had to make the hole in the back quite a bit bigger to get the front to screw on.

With the mounting box fixed to the side of the worktop I drilled a hole in the wood to match the hole in the mounting box. It's not a very tidy job, but isn't visible with the sockets in place so not an issue.

Then I passed the cable through the hole and wired up the socket and that was that end completed. I fitted the plug to the other end of the cable then used a multimeter to make sure everything was connected.

This was a very important step and I'm very glad I didn't skip it because the earth wire had come loose in the socket which meant that if I had plugged something in it would have worked, but it wouldn't have been earthed. Very dangerous.

As the picture shows, with the earth wire reconnected, everything checked out okay. At this point Tyrion was ready to take to a site and plug in (assuming they didn't ask about the consumer unit, that is). However, I am not going to be spending as much time on a camp site as on my own drive so I made a short adapter cable which means I can plug him into an ordinary 13A mains socket.

Remembering that the blue socket cost around three pounds and the mains plug and cable were already in the garage, I saved a few pounds making this myself rather than buying one in the shop. This plugs into an ordinary mains socket and Tyrion's blue cable plugs into this. That's how my installation is little more than an extension lead and why the whole thing cost less than a tenner.

As you can see from this picture, the cable at the moment just comes out from between the back doors rather untidily, but it's weatherproof and does the job until I decide to add an external plug and a consumer unit.

Also in this image you can see the other thing I picked up at Dickinson - a red rubber ball cover for my towbar. It's supposed to protect your caravan in case you accidentally bump it against your towbar, but I bought it because I liked the way it looks - and because it's red.

Note: Do not work with mains electricity unless you know what you are doing. I am not an electrician. This post is about how I have done something and is not intended as a how-to for anyone to copy. If I had electrocuted myself or fried my van today, that would have been my fault. If you do the same after reading this, it will be yours. #justsaying.