Thread: DIY electrical?

Just wondering if it's legal to run wires underground yourself and then have an electrician join it up?
reason I ask is I'm looking at putting a fluro light on a pontoon and would need a fair bit of wiring running from the house.
If I can do it all myself then get a sparky in to connect it to the power supply it would save me a fair bit I'm guessing.

Depends on the Sparky. I'd be talking to your sparky first to find out if they will power up cable which you have laid yourself, some will be more than happy for you to do the hard work, others wont.

If they are happy for you to lay the cable, make sure its done according to the standards (double check with them first) because the last thing you want is them not wanting to connect it as it wasn't done properly.

Hope that helps.

As you are in Queensland you will run up against this in the Electrical Safety Act and depends on how the electrician wants to comply.

Meaning of electrical work(1) Electrical work is the manufacturing, constructing, installing,
testing, maintaining, repairing, altering, removing, or
replacing of electrical equipment.
Examples of electrical work—
• installing low voltage electrical wiring in a building
• installing electrical equipment into an installation coupler or
interconnecter
• replacing a low voltage electrical component of a washing machine
• maintaining an electricity entity’s overhead distribution system

and

) An electrical work licence is a licence authorising an
individual to perform electrical work.

I agree. I am generally happy for someone to do the work as long as I can see what has been done and we have agreed before hand. i.e. don't show me a filled in trench with a bit of conduit and cable poking out each end and expect me to sign off. Show me the open trench and bedded conduit, then fill it in, lay the tape etc. Having the customer do some work isn't all that different to having an offsider do it as long as you instruct them on what to do and supervise it.

PS I don't dig trenches anyway... and you mightn't like electrician's rates for digging holes.

The sparkies I've used in the last five years have all said to me...."so you'll do all the trenching?". And yes I've done all the trenching. Sparkies have laid the conduit and filled them in....

I dont think you would have an issue, it will come down to the sparky.

I personally don't mind connecting a circuit where the owner has run the cable themselves providing I have surveyed the job and calculated required cable size and spoken about what "SHOULD" be done. I ALWAYS insist that the conduits be run 600 deep ( in my experience a concrete cover seldom happens ) and INSIST on a conduits thats size is bigger than strictly necessary. I have been known to push a "Snake" down the vertical sections of conduit just to check depth but i really like the idea of connecting the circuits while the trench is open just to check the installation.

Thanks guys,
So my best bet is probably get a sparky to give me a quote on the job and another quote with me doing any trench digging.
Im happy to leave trenches open until the job is done if need be.
hopefully I have options that can minimize the amount of digging required.

Check your correct cable size for the job too, When I put my pool in I had to use a different cable due to the distance from the meter box.

Thanks guys,
had a sparky come out yesterday and it looks like I will get away with about 2-3mtrs of trenching as he said he can run the conduit along the back of my pools wall which is behind some hedging then at the end of the pool it will go underground to the back boundary at the gangway.
He is sending we a quote for him to lay it all with me digging the trench. It's about 25 mtrs of cable to be laid so I will check out some prices and see what it will cost me in materials as well.
At minimum I will do the conduit that will be attached to the underside of the Gangway as I can't see him getting in the water to do it properly.
Is there a particular conduit that is required for potential submersion in salt water?