Adding a weatherproof outdoor socket on the balcony for a…
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Adding a weatherproof outdoor socket on the balcony for a plug-in battery, what the electrician flagged
For about half a year my plug-in solar battery was fed by an extension cord snaked through the gap in the balcony door, which worked but bugged me every time it rained and every time i closed the door on the cable. So i finally got an electrician in to install a proper weatherproof socket on the balcony itself, and a few things he flagged are worth passing on for anyone about to do the same.
First, the socket needs to be on a circuit with proper GFCI protection, and he checked it was not sharing a circuit with something heavy like the kitchen circuit. Second, the enclosure has to be a real outdoor rated box where the cover actually closes over the plug, not an indoor socket with a flap pretending to be weatherproof. Third, and this is the one i would not have thought of, he set it up so the cable forms a drip loop, hanging down before it reaches the socket so rain runs off the low point instead of tracking along the cable into the connection.
He was also blunt about what he sees go wrong most often: people daisy chaining extension cords outdoors and leaving cheap indoor cable in the sun for years until the insulation goes brittle. The battery itself is plug and play and totally fine, the risk is always the improvised socket and cable around it, not the unit.
The actual job was a short run and a morning of work, and the cost was reasonable against not having a cord pinched in a door for another winter. The unit, a Jackery in my case, just plugs into the new outdoor socket and the whole thing finally looks like it belongs there rather than like a temporary lash up. If your battery lives outside permanently, spend the money on the socket it plugs into, that is the part worth doing properly.
#home
source
For about half a year my plug-in solar battery was fed by an extension cord snaked through the gap in the balcony door, which worked but bugged me every time it rained and every time i closed the door on the cable. So i finally got an electrician in to install a proper weatherproof socket on the balcony itself, and a few things he flagged are worth passing on for anyone about to do the same.
First, the socket needs to be on a circuit with proper GFCI protection, and he checked it was not sharing a circuit with something heavy like the kitchen circuit. Second, the enclosure has to be a real outdoor rated box where the cover actually closes over the plug, not an indoor socket with a flap pretending to be weatherproof. Third, and this is the one i would not have thought of, he set it up so the cable forms a drip loop, hanging down before it reaches the socket so rain runs off the low point instead of tracking along the cable into the connection.
He was also blunt about what he sees go wrong most often: people daisy chaining extension cords outdoors and leaving cheap indoor cable in the sun for years until the insulation goes brittle. The battery itself is plug and play and totally fine, the risk is always the improvised socket and cable around it, not the unit.
The actual job was a short run and a morning of work, and the cost was reasonable against not having a cord pinched in a door for another winter. The unit, a Jackery in my case, just plugs into the new outdoor socket and the whole thing finally looks like it belongs there rather than like a temporary lash up. If your battery lives outside permanently, spend the money on the socket it plugs into, that is the part worth doing properly.
#home
source
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