Outdoor electrical work should be planned around intended use, cable routes, drainage, landscaping, product locations, controls and future maintenance. A garden or external plan helps coordinate the electrical work before paving, planting and finishes restrict access.
When to enquire
Define the scope
Outdoor requirements
Outdoors, equipment has to survive weather and a person can be in contact with true earth, so the requirements tighten. Every outdoor circuit needs RCD protection, fittings and accessories need appropriate weather rating, and buried cable needs both suitable protection and a recorded route.
The recurring failure is water ingress. A circuit that behaves all summer and trips through autumn and after storms is almost always water reaching a fitting, a junction or a damaged cable. Finding the point of ingress is the fix; resetting the device is not.
A permanent supply to a garden office, garage or studio is normally a dedicated submain — usually steel wire armoured cable — feeding a small board in the outbuilding, with the earthing arrangement considered separately. Extension leads across a garden are a trip and shock risk and are not weatherproof.
Armoured cable is buried deep enough to avoid damage from digging, commonly around 450mm under a lawn or bed and deeper under a drive, with marker tape above or run in duct. Record the route: you will want to know where it is.
External sockets should be a weatherproof type, RCD protected and sited clear of splashing. Garden lighting ranges from mains fittings on the wall to buried low-voltage systems, which are popular because the cabling is far less onerous.
Both are special cases. Hot tubs generally need a dedicated RCD-protected supply with an isolator within reach but not adjacent. Ponds and fountains need particular attention to equipment selection and connection positions.
Include the postcode, preferred timing and any useful existing information.