Monday, November 11, 2019

Under house electric cable routing

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NRLMAcerANoknj1z8

This is part of the recovery from Squatter Cy's screwups.  Cy had attempted to hide bare spots of damaged cable within conduit.  That cable/conduit to be placed under the house.

Yesterday, I was able to push three 20' joints of 3/4" PVC from the back of the house to the front.  Then, I attached the end of a spool of 2/0 aluminum wire to the end of the 3/4" pipe.  Then, pulled the cable under the house from the front of the house.  The whole operation went surprising smoothly; I was able to do it by myself.  Disassembling Squatter Cy's leavings, OTOH, took four energic people.
Yet to do: make the connection to a breaker in my main panel on the front end of the house and make a similar connection to the new subpanel on the rear of the house.

The new subpanel supplies the new electric water heater but via a long run of 10ga romex currently laying on the ground outside of the house.  The orange 10ga is visible in the 5th photo.  The heater uses no more than 30 amps.

Eventually, I will run an extension from the new rear subpanel to the red "new garage" in the last photo, then on the the "south field" to serve additional PV panels.  The whole chain of new wiring should handle 100+ amps.

The first photo shows the end of the 3/4" PVC that had passed under the house.
The second photo shows detail of the electric cable to 3/4" PVC connection.
The third photo shows electric cable disappearing under the rear of the house.
The fourth shows electric cable's spool.  I think I have 300+ feet left on the spool.
The fifth shows proposed route of new cable on it's way to the south field.

The 2/0 aluminum cable is rated for "direct bury", no conduit need unless exposed.  I have learned that it is a bad idea to not use conduit on even direct bury cable if it might be encountered by future excavation.  The run under the house needs no conduit.  The buried cable to the new garage will be placed in conduit; the cable run to the new garage will not likely be direct bury rated.  I have both the 2/0 aluminum direct bury and 1 gauge copper (not direct bury) available to use in various segments of the project.  Both types of cable should carry the 100+ amps.

11/16/19
I slipped two joints of 1.5" conduit over the wire under the front of the house.  Then put in two elbows.  Then, routed conduit out under the main panel where it needs to go.
Soon: do similar at the rear of the house under the new sub-panel.
The hard part will be getting the very heavy wire connected inside the panels.  At least on the front, I intend to go down from 2/0 aluminum to 1 gauge copper to make the connections somewhat easier.




1 comment:

  1. "The buried cable to the new garage will be placed in conduit; the cable run to the new garage will not likely be direct bury rated." I see Home Depot has 1 1/4" PVC electrical conduit for about 48 cents/foot. Will that be large enough, or will you need to use 1 1/2" at 57 cents/foot. The larger size will be easy to pull wire. Easy-peasy... you can do it yourself in a flash! Easier than hiring Cy.

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