Avast ye.

today, at long long last, the shed has gone up (at my rented place) and so by tommorow morn, i will be able to fill the 8×12 box with my toys 🙂 just in time for the on ones to be shipped early next week too, all going well.

however, its now dark after 5:00, so i wont be able to build said on one, without some illuination.

the set up is this

1). there is an exterior socket on the end of the house.
2). its about 15m to the shed.

the obvious answer is:
run a 15m extension lead, from the shed, to the house, wire it so it can be passed out the shed, across the patio to the socket, when needed, and wound away when not needed so its not in the way/getting wet.
then fit a 150w work light or an inspection lamp inside, and hang it up from the roof.
i think an RCD on the plug would be a good plan too.

however i open it to the panel for any suggestions or modifications to this…

solar power would be nice, but is there a solar availible lamp that would kick out enough light to comfortably work by?

i think an RCD on the plug would be a good plan too.

I would assume that the exterior socket is already protected so I don't see a need (unless it is an old installation).

But as it is only rented I tend to agree that a rolled out extension cable is the simplest solution.
HD lead

You're going to want mains power, solar won't cut it. How else are you going to power the radio, kettle, heater, TV, PC etc.

Rather than use the outside socket as a plug I'd hard wire it into the plug then bury the (armoured) cable. If you want to do it really properly you could put a mini fuse board in the shed as well.

hard wiring into the plug and fitting a fuse board will require an inspection. I'd go for the extension but don't get a reel, get a caravan type extension as it's high visibility, UV protected and properly waterproof, stick a decent rubberised 13amp plug on one end and attach a decent four way plug board to the other. If you use a reel ebery time you wind it up and it's wet it will never dry out and damp will eventually get into the important bits, you can loop a loose cable around a hook or something when it's not in use

Doubt you would be able to fit an rcd plug in any outside socket I've seen. But as above extension is your easiest option. And it will be much cheaper making your own 15m extension than buying one.

I wouldn't be digging up and laying armoured cable in a rented property – it's well expensive!

Is the exterior socket on an RCD at the main board? If so just make up a decent extension cable to work with.

As my house comes with my job and they get a bit funny about mucking about with the electricals, I went for solar.

20W panel runs an LEDlighting system inside plus 3 more lights wired into motion sensors for the patio, driveway and log store/ shed extension/ turbo area. The lighting uses pretty high quality 3 Watt LED lights that kick out 220 lumen each so it's all pretty light. A 1500W inverter takes care of the occasional bit of 240V AC work with a drill etc. A car stereo wired into the 12V supply for the tunes. As I don't get to spend as much "man time" as I would like every week, the 20W panel provides plenty enough power for my needs.

Heating is taken care of by an old 13kg butane cylinder welded up into a wood stove inc pot stand for coffee. The shed is also dry lined and insulated so it stays quite warm. Grass roof to be added in the spring.

anyone got nay experience of this type of thing?

http://www.thesolarcentre.co.uk/products/Solar_Shed_Light-207-7.html

Yep – got one to get by whilst and designed and built the above. Pretty dismal TBH – just enough light to see you hand in front of your face but not a lot more. You could find and extract your bike from your shed with the amount of light they produce but anything technical would be out of the question.

I'd be interested in knowing more about this. I've just bought a house that comes with a garage by the house, but also has a stable/tack room half way down the garden and a mahoossive barn/garage at the bottom.

The garage by the house has power. I'd like power to the other two buildings as well, but don't fancy paying for 300' of armoured cable and burying it!

Grass roof to be added in the spring.

At the moment all three buildings have asbestos roofs, which I'd like to get rid of eventually, and I'd like to go the green roof route. How are you planning on doing the grass roof?

i reckon if you could be bothered to do it properly mike, (which i cant) you could get a good solar system set up if you did it yourself.
a couple of car batterys as storage, wire up some appropriate panels to trickle charge them constantly, and then add a simple control panel to let you run a light off it. (like convert has described)

when i get "my own" shed, i think ill probably have a go at that. but at the moment, as i dont know how long ill be in this place, no point in wiring up a few hundred quids worth of electrics really.

get 'leisure' batteries, not car ones. the leisure battries are designed for low current draw over long periods, not high over a very short one.

one step away from admitting youve got caravan there wwaswas 😉

Olly email , on the email in my profile, and ill send you some shed security advice.

my names wwaswas and I own a caravan.

there, I've said it 😳

ygm….

I'm running one of these

It's bright enough to pluck pheasants by…

get a generator, it'll be well handy to take to SITS and stuff too

outdoor cabling – eye raw-bolt sneaked into the wall, washing-line cable across to the shed nice and tight, then a few cable ties to hold the elecy to the washy

Fortunately my main shed came with some lovely ropey electrics thrown in