I’ll keep it short. Live in a rental with a nice brick outbuilding. Absolutely no chance of me being allowed to install proper power/lighting. Need decent lighting in it to fiddle with the bike etc and play some tunes. Can I run a light off a plug via an extension lead? If so, what light (bright and efficient) should I be looking at?

Thanks in advance.

I put up an old kitchen strip light wired to a plug, then ran an extension lead out to the shed, held above the ground (about 8 ft) by a line. The extension lead gave me a couple of sockets for power plus one for the light which was nice and even. A drip loop as the cable entered the shed and house stopped water running along the cable.
It was a bit Heath Robinson and there may well have been safety concerns I dont know about, but it worked fine for ten years.

My workshop is lit by 4 of these http://www.taskersonline.com/products/Faithful-240v-MIR-Task-Light-%2850092722%29.html

Bought on sale at about £15 each.

Cool. I was thinking of kitchen strip lights but those task lights look superb…. How bright are they? Good thinking about the ‘drip loop’ too 🙂

How bright are they?

Pretty decent, the workshop is 8x4m and 4 of them are enough.

Excellent. Just found these on Screwfix Worklight that look like they might do just the job.

Cheers for all the help and advice

Used to rent a terrace house that had the garage at the end with no power. We had a couple of strip lights up there and just ran an extension lead to it as already suggested. It worked fine.

Just make sure you use an RCD plug and it should be fine. I’ve done it will full armoured cable run through the garden but that was probably overkill.

Thanks nemesis. I’ve got a heavy duty 4 socket extension lead with a built in rcd, will that be good enough?

Your distribution box has probably got an RCD already….

It should do but best practice is still to always have one on the plug for outdoor use – not certain why but possibly more sensitive ones for the plug than the main one?

womble, that should be fine but IANAE 🙂

Those lights are Ok and all that, but @ £24 each I’d opt for an old kitchen strip light wired up to a plug on an RCD(same as I run in my loft) They can be picked up off Ebay for next to nowt. I think I paid £20 for 3x 6ft’ers which all went in the garage, they all came with tubes and starters and are as easy to wire up as a plug is

It should do but best practice is still to always have one on the plug for outdoor use – not certain why but possibly more sensitive ones for the plug than the main one?

Nope, they’ll both be 30mA….

My shed has a weather proof 4 foot batten in it. I’m pretty happy with it, using a strip light is nice as there are next to no shadows when working at the bench beneath it.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-t8-high-frequency-weatherproof-batten-1-x-36w-4ft-1265mm/77863

Those look really neat, Dave C. What cable would I need to wire these up? Also would a standard 13amp plug be ok? Just compiling a shopping list 😀

If I wire two on one plug, might free up a socket on my extension lead.

carlos – Member
Those lights are Ok and all that, but @ £24 each I’d opt for an old kitchen strip light wired up to a plug on an RCD(same as I run in my loft) They can be picked up off Ebay for next to nowt.

+1 or just wander round any refurb (commercial or home), strip lights are always being dumped as their ‘old fashioned’