I don't normally watch any of the current run of TV shows, but I just happened to catch a few minutes of "House of Horrors" last night while fiddling around with a TV set. This is a show where the crew sets out to trap dishonest tradesmen by having them do work at a house while recording everything with carefully secreted cameras and microphones.

Last night's included a landscaping company which was to install a water feature and rockery in the garden. Leaving aside the fact that the landscaping aspect certainly wasn't worth the £2000-plus being charged, we were shown the wiring which had been installed for the pump and lights.

The transformer for the lights had been put inside a plastic bag, the ends taped up around the cables, and then the whole lot buried in the rockery. The 240V feed from the house was spliced to the transformer (and presumably the pump) by using what was obviously just a choc-block taped over and then buried directly in the ground! [Linked Image]

It was a little hard to tell from the limited amount we were shown, but it also appeared to me as though they'd just taken a length of twin-&-earth and buried it directly in the ground from the house. It might have been something like Hi-Tuf, but I doubt it.

We didn't see how the cable had been terminated in the house, although we were treated to a shot of the aforementioned lekky-trishun drilling through the wall for the cable -- Immediately to the left of an existing flush-mounted double 13A socket.