The year-round power supply for your garden lighting can be achieved safely and reliably using underground cables. Thanks to strong insulation, the cables are protected from harmful weather conditions and do not pose a tripping hazard like seasonal extension cables. These instructions explain step by step how to properly lay a power cable in the garden.
How can I lay a cable in the garden for lighting?
To properly lay a power cable in the garden for lighting, first dig a 60 cm deep trench, remove stones and roots, spread a 10 cm layer of sand, lay the underground cable in empty conduits, pull in the cable with a pulling aid and cover it with another 10 cm of sand.
Material, tools and preparatory work
Detailed planning ensures that power connections for your garden lighting will later be in the right places. We recommend laying the cables in empty conduits for greater safety. You can also easily insert additional cables here later. The following materials and tools are required:
- Underground cable NYY-J 3-wire or 5-wire
- Empty pipes, for example made of PVC
- Pull-in spiral or pull-in tape (€13.00 at Amazon)
- Alternative cable covers
- Warning tapes in yellow or red-white
- Sand
- Spade
- String and wooden sticks
Important: Before installation, please check whether you have observed all safety regulations. All components for cable laying should be assigned protection class IP 44 or higher.
Instructions for laying cables
Mark the route of the cable in advance with cords that you stretch between wooden sticks. Ideally, you should check the specific positions of the garden lamps on site before you start the excavation work. This is how you proceed professionally:
- Dig a 60 cm deep trench
- Remove all stones and roots
- Spread a 10 cm thick layer of sand on the sole
- Lay out the empty pipes on top
- Use the pulling aid to pull in the underground cables
First cover the underground cable in the empty conduit with another 10 cm thick layer of sand. Embedded in the protective tube and the sand layer, the cable is perfectly protected against weather influences and earth movements. If you are not using conduit, cover the underground cable with conduit covers instead before filling the sand. Spread some of the excavated material over the sand layer to create a flat surface.
Finally, mark the position of the power cable with narrow warning tape. This safety measure can be vital when carrying out earthworks in the garden.
Tip
Does laying cables in a far away corner of the garden prove to be uneconomical? Then you can easily make your garden lighting independent of a power supply from the mains. This can be done easily and inexpensively with solar lights, lanterns or battery-operated fairy lights.
