About 8 years ago I cut the in ground power line(120v 20A) to my septic tank high water alarm with a tiller. Needless to say it was a mess. I spliced it the best i could do back then, I had to add about a 4ft piece of in ground rated electrical line. I soldered the wires and use shrink tubing and some die-electric paste. Still recently, the alarm failed and I tested the voltage on the wires coming into the box and found that the voltage getting to the box was only in the 10v range.
I dug up the line where the splices were made and found that the voltage at the splice was a little better at 24v max, still nowhere near 120v.
Now when I cut the line to test the voltage i found that there was some moisture inside the wire insulation and the copper had the green corrosion on the surface. I dug up another 2ft back on the line and cut it there too and got 35v max and the copper was still green.
I've got about 75ft left to the get to the house and just wondering if there are any ideas of what I should do. I'm very much just considering trenching a whole new line, a little deeper this time.
Can anyone tell me what might have happened, my guess is that the water found it's way up the line and found a place to short out the wire, but without digging the whole thing up, I don't know how I'd find it. I know coming out of the house it's 120v.
thanks
gary
I dug up the line where the splices were made and found that the voltage at the splice was a little better at 24v max, still nowhere near 120v.
Now when I cut the line to test the voltage i found that there was some moisture inside the wire insulation and the copper had the green corrosion on the surface. I dug up another 2ft back on the line and cut it there too and got 35v max and the copper was still green.
I've got about 75ft left to the get to the house and just wondering if there are any ideas of what I should do. I'm very much just considering trenching a whole new line, a little deeper this time.
Can anyone tell me what might have happened, my guess is that the water found it's way up the line and found a place to short out the wire, but without digging the whole thing up, I don't know how I'd find it. I know coming out of the house it's 120v.
thanks
gary