Germans do the PERFECT Electrical Wiring! (Garage Build)

In this video I will show you how I did the electrical installation in my new garage. That means I will show you the basic stuff like mounting and wiring up switches, outlets, lamps, fuses,...... But I will also include some more advanced and super awesome stuff like a CEE socket, emergency stop switches and special cable ducts. So let me show you how German electricians do such work and maybe I can inspire you for your next electrical installation.

Websites which were shown/used during the video:

Thanks to Keysight for sponsoring this video.

0:00 Electrical Installation for a Garage?
1:15 Intro
1:58 Building Workbenches
3:53 Plans for the Electronics
4:49 Speciality 1 "Wall Ducts"
5:56 Speciality 2 CEE Socket
6:23 Speciality 3 Emergency Stop Switches
8:08 Planning Complete
8:51 Practical Build
11:25 Testing & Verdict

[greatscottlab]

Small Corrections: The CEE socket can supply 11kW. I wanted to keep it simple and keep the sqrt out of there but that just messed everything up. And secondly the power required by the relay is not around 60W. Maybe something around 20W. I mixed up some values in the datasheet. Sorry.

[ianmccoy]

As someone who lives in and is from the USA this makes our electrical system look and feel ancient. I really wish the us would adopt things such as the metric system and electrical system like those in Germany.

[paolox]

My Dad would have loved this. His mains connections boxes were works of art - everything super neat and ordered, and he'd leave extensive notes for the next electrician. He did wiring for new houses, rewiring for older houses (climbing through roofs was awful in the Australian heat, I don't know how he did it), 3 phase workshop and factory installations, and he worked for a long time on the huge pumps that drove the water supplies. I think he would appreciate the attention to detail here.

[ChrisRid]

Just so you know, the power consumption of your contactor is actually 5.75W, the 62.5W figure you mentioned is the in-rush power (when it first energises) but it only draws that for a fraction of a second. So you'll only use 0.14kW per day if you left it permanently energised.

[Rein-hgin]

I love to see a European electrical installation on youtube for once. I think this shows many other people the way how it's done over in Europe as I don't think many know how different it is. Great video and great work on your electrical installation. It looks very clean, the way I like it :) Keep up the great video's man!

[rafaelef]

If you want to carry long heavy objects by yourself easier just mount a couple of wheels on a piece of plywood and line the other side with some non scratching material like leftover soft carpet. Put one side of your heavy objects on the plywood and carry the other side. You'd be surprised how much easier it is then :)

[vkuolema]

I love how the distribution board ended up looking. The surface mounted plastic ducts for the conductors looks so nice. Nice touch of german attention to detail design.

[DavidBauer]

Ausgezeichnet!!! As an electrician in the States, it was great to see how things are done in Germany.

When my brother and sister-in-law built their house in Germany, I was amazed with his electric panel: 400V 3-phase (much more power than our split-phase 240 V panel)! It even had a built-in timing relay to control the Schwibbogen!!!

[anon_y_mousse]

What a time to be alive where you can just order a concrete box and have an instant garage. They even have house kits where they'll just crane the pieces into place and done. The fact that it has a pre-installed window in that concrete box is the cherry on top. For that matter, they do have some companies that are experimenting with 3D printing concrete houses, and even putting insulation in the walls. I know they had house kits in the 1800's, but for the longest time such things were niche, now it's so much easier and more accessible.

[oraldobugarin]

Nice project and congrats on the start of building your home. My suggestion would be, if time allowed, is labeling your wires at your substation panel. Not sure if you plan on doing that, but it would help for when you go back and add new construction or for trouble shooting.

[masterofx]

You could add a pushbutton and green light to turn on your work bench. Then switch the relay operation around as it should be. This will then consume the additional power only when the circuit is active anyway. It will also function as safety in case of power outages to prevent equipment from starting unintentionally.

[diagoblack]

I used a shunt trip in a safety circuit like this. When the e stop is pressed the shunt trip mechanically trips the main switch / circuit breaker / rcd. There is no idle current. Requires a physical reset once the emergency situation is rectified. Works well

[joshuahuman]

It’s cool to see how wiring in homes in Europe gets done compared to the USA. It seems like there’s a lot more customization available compared to panels in the USA. Seems closer to how we wire panels at my work building automation equipment.

[MasterTanu]

Hello, congratulations on the excellent electrical installation, I was once an electrical installation inspector here in Portugal. Around here we use the same materials and the same brands. Here we do not mix sockets and lighting in the same circuit, not for safety reasons (as long as it is guaranteed) but for legal reasons. If there is any repair to be done (and I'm being nitpicky) it's just the location of the electrical panel, here in Portugal we do our best to always install it near the entrance to the building, to allow maneuvers in case of an accident inside, but as I said I'm being extremely picky. Once again congratulations on the excellent work!

[dtnicholls]

Only thing I would pick on is the half completed conduit.

European rules are somewhat similar to ours, so yes I'm aware that it's not required, however having all of the corners just left out just looks dodgy.

A few bits of corro (flexible corrugated conduit) would seal everything up, give a bit of additional mechanical protection at those corners and just make it look neat.

[maik]

To everyone asking why the cable wasnt completely enclosed in the conduit with bends and such:
In germany electrical wiring needs to be double insulated. In this case the cable itself already is, so in theory he could have just nailed it directly to the walls with some clips, not needing the conduits at all.
Had he run single wires, then he would have needed to enclose the wires in conduit the whole way. But running single wires in conduit, while allowed, is not usually done here.

[christianc]

Nice setup! This is not for the same situation but when I set up and EMO circuit for an automation device I used a “safety relay” which requires an additional reset switch before power can be turned back on.

[mdlukas]

Instead of using the relay for your emergency stop, you could use an RCD with an undervoltage release (Unterspannungsauslöser). Thats how they did it for the new buildung my school got.

You get the cable break protection with only a stand-by power consumption of < 10 VA (depending on the model)

[niksgarage]

When I did my lab / home office, I used conduit to mount sockets as well. I did take the opportunity to wire a whole load of network sockets, and wire them back to a mini 19 inch rack. I also wired satellite feeds, a bit of good gauge cable for surround sound loudspeakers and the TV / computer displays, along with a home cinema amp to do the switching.

[draconis]

I wish we had a lot of this stuff in the US. Your buddy does such clean work, love it!