Underground Wiring

Posted by Glenn on February 11, 2007, 4:53 pm

It's possible you are missing a easier/cheaper way.

Here, I put in the 2" pipe and also beside it 2, 1" pipes for
cable and phone. The meter is on the end of the house and P&L
supplied and pulled the wire from the pole to the house/meter.

> "It will be hard to pull wire through the full
> 200 feet even if it's a straight line, so I'd consider a splice
> box"
> I don't think Alan ever pulled any wire through conduit or he
> wouldn't have made the above statement. I pulled 400 foot of
> 4/0-2/0 aluminum triplex underground service cable through 3"
> pvc conduit by hand. It pulled pretty easy even though I am not
> a big guy. If I had it to do over again I would probably hook to
> a riding lawn mower and make it even easier. Two hundred feet
> should be a piece of cake. Check with the power company and they
> will tell you what you need. Most utility companies guarantee a
> certain voltage at the meter so try and get the meter as close
> to the point of use as possible. More volts are always better.

Posted by HerHusband on February 12, 2007, 11:03 am

> I pulled 400 foot of 4/0-2/0 aluminum triplex underground
> service cable through 3" pvc conduit by hand. It pulled
> pretty easy even though I am not a big guy.

I agree, it shouldn't be a big deal to pull cable through 200 feet of
conduit. We pulled three conductor 4/0 aluminum cable through 70 feet of
4" conduit that had two 45 degree bends. It went very easily. Assuming
you make a few preparations, it shouldn't matter if it's 200 or 500 feet.

1. Use larger conduit. It'll be a LOT easier to pull 4/0 cables through
3" or 4" conduit than it will through 2" conduit. This would also let you
upgrade to larger cable in the future if the need ever arose.

2. When you install the conduit, feed a "pull rope" through each section
so the rope is available at each end of the conduit.

3. If the conduit is already in, and you forgot to install a pull rope,
tie a piece of cloth big enough to loosely fill the conduit to the end of
a string. Then use a shop vac on one end to suck the rag and string
through the conduit. Then tie the string to a rope and pull that through.
You can then use the rope to pull the cable.

4. Put a little "cable lube" on the cable before you start pulling. This
is a waxy substance that really simplifies cable pulling, especially in
tight situations. Just don't get it on your hands or gloves or you won't
be able to hang on to anything. :)

5. Use electrical tape to secure the pull rope to the end of the cable.
Try to make the end of the cable "taper" a bit with the tape so there's
less likelihood of it catching on the conduit joints. Squirt a little
cable lube on the end, then have one person "push" the cable in the
conduit, while another "pulls" the rope from the other end. The person
pushing should do most of the work, the rope is mostly to help guide the
cable. Don't pull too hard or you may pull the rope loose from the cable.

Shouldn't be any problems, but if it seems to get stuck, just pull the
cable back a bit and try again. If you have a bend or two, it make take a
bit of jiggling to get the cable through the bends. Worst case, you can
pull the cable out and start all over again.

Good luck,

Anthony

Posted by dgreen368 via HomeKB.com on February 13, 2007, 8:53 am

Thanks for all of the information. I'm going to slow down, contact the
engineer at the utility company and have him come out and review the
electricity supply point options with me. Then I'll involve a licensed
electrician to work with me to develop a plan that fits my budget and my
willingness to put in the sweat work.
Through this post and others here I've learned a heck of a lot. Thanks again.
..

dgreen368 wrote:

>Hello,
> I just purchased a 6 acre country property in West Texas and am building a
>small apartment (580SF). I didn't do a lot of research on supplying
>electricity to the apartment and had the electric company place a meter on
>the pole about 200 feet from the apartment. My intention was to trench and
>bury the service wire. Now I browse through Home Depot looking at wire and
>see some costing $5-6 per foot. Wow.
> Can anybody tell me what size wire I require to run this service? My
>intention was to in the future add another 1500 SF main home to this
>structure. I thought I would power the entire thing from the box in the
>apartment, but if the cost is out of sight I'll run service for the small
>apartment and worry about power for the main house later when it's built (2
>years).
> I have another pole that's about 120 Feet from the structure so I could
>possible eat the cost ($580) for the initial meter and have one brought
>closer.
> Does this make sense? Can anybody tell me what I'm looking at.
>Thanks
>Dave
>Worried out West

--
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Underground Wiring - Page 2