We are now seeing alittle more about the layout of your location. Could you go around the concrete pad which I think is at the side of the house.So if you come out the back wall of the house swoop around the pads and head for the well. The wire gauge # 10 that you talked should handle the slight extra distance. When the code talks about burial depth that is the minimum ground cover. The code does really care if you bury cable at 4'. If you bury it deeper then you do not have to worry when in a couple of years from now you want to plant a tree ball.
Craig Clayton
I agree, just go around the slab if you have the property to do it. You get a longer run but running conduit with a wire is you best solution. Two feet is the deepest you need to bury it. Take photos with a digital camera of the line before you cover it up and save it to a disk for the future if you need it. A wire that breaks down in one spot will fail elsewhere. Think back, did do anything that might have caused the original problem? The TDR system will detect lines at 4 feet if I remember.
The resistance of #10 copper wire is .000999 ohms per inch (.011988ohms per foot). If you have 2.8 ohms to a direct short at the one end you should be approx. 116-3/4 feet out. Here's the problem, you can see that it's longer than your run, so here's how to do it.
Get your digital meter, put it on ohms and touch the leads together. You should get a very low reading but not zero becuase you're measuring the resitance in the leads and not using the 4 wire method (which you can't). Remember this reading, now take your reading over the line from both ends and subtract the meter lead error from each one. I think you said it was 3.2 and 2.8. do it again and measure EACH end with the method I described above this will give you the most accurate reading.
What you want is a ratio, you won't get a location purely from the resistance because it is most likely not a direct short. What is likely is that the short is equal when you measure from both ends. Now measure, as best you can, the total distance manually with a tape for the total run. and do this math, (let's say it's 3.2 and 2.8 and the total distance is 90 feet) 2.8x + 3.32x = total distance. x= 90 / 2.8 +3.2. x=15. 15 x 2.8 = 42 feet; 15 x 3.2 = 48 feet. That's you distance from each end and you should be within, I'd say, 3 or 4 feet, you can compare this to the reading the guy took.
good luck,
Rob
