All in the same ditch/trench

[bdeboer]

If you ever have to dig the lines back up, the phone line will always seems to be in the way. The underground to my barn has electric in conduit, a water line, and a direct burial phone line. The phone line is above the water & electric.

 

[woodlot]

If its not to far of a run to be cost prohibitive I'd put the phone and cable TV lines in conduit, separate conduit. You never know when that cat5e is going to be obsolete. Technology changes so fast, you may as well be prepared when it needs replacing.

 

[LBrown59]

If its not to far of a run to be cost prohibitive I'd put the phone and cable TV lines in conduit, separate conduit. You never know when that cat5e is going to be obsolete. Technology changes so fast, you may as well be prepared when it needs replacing.

I've decided to go with one trench about 12 to 15 feet long for
2 elect lines 20 amp breaker: feeds from garage breaker box.
1 elect line 15 amp breaker-from house breaker box.
1 phone line .
What i'm undecided on is Should I go with a seperate conduit for each of the 4 lines, or can I just run the phone line on one small conduit and run the 3 electric lines in one larger Conduit?

 

[VABlue]

Put the electric together but the phone line separate. Also, use larger conduit than necessary and leave fishtape in them. If a future need dictates more wires, you can easily pull them through with the fishtape and not have to dig it all up again.

 

[LBrown59]

Put the electric together but the phone line separate. Also, use larger conduit than necessary and leave fishtape in them. If a future need dictates more wires, you can easily pull them through with the fishtape and not have to dig it all up again.

What is fishtape and where do I get it?

 

[VABlue]

The fancy stuff is a metal line that you push through conduit. You can get it at any Lowes or HD, either on a reel or coiled up on its own. You just tape (or tie) the end of a wire to it and push it through. The non-fancy version is a string pulled through the conduit along with a stiff wire. You can then use the string to pull anything else through. If you always attach more string to anything you pull, you'll always have an easy way to get more wire pulled.

 

[jeffinsgf]

I've decided to go with one trench about 12 to 15 feet long for
2 elect lines 20 amp breaker: feeds from garage breaker box.
1 elect line 15 amp breaker-from house breaker box.
1 phone line .
What i'm undecided on is Should I go with a seperate conduit for each of the 4 lines, or can I just run the phone line on one small conduit and run the 3 electric lines in one larger Conduit?

12 to 15 feet? Why run the phone line? Just get a 2Gb wireless phone. I use mine almost a hundred feet away with a steel building and a brick house between the base and the remote.

 

[lola13]

I taught my father to climb poles when he was in his mid fifties. He did fine.

As for the same trench, think of the potential. Can you imagine the fun power would have playing on all the equipment attached to your phone lines? If you had them in the same vicinity and an auger or digging attachment was able to contact both entities at the same time you would have power playing with your puter, your telly, and your phones.

If gas was in there, hmmm, sparks and fuel, sounds like a real party.

This is along the line of the logic of running your waste and water supply lines in the same trench............

just wish to know why does gas and water lie need to be in seperate trench?

 

[WarrenF]

I've decided to go with one trench about 12 to 15 feet long for
2 elect lines 20 amp breaker: feeds from garage breaker box.
1 elect line 15 amp breaker-from house breaker box.
1 phone line .
What i'm undecided on is Should I go with a seperate conduit for each of the 4 lines, or can I just run the phone line on one small conduit and run the 3 electric lines in one larger Conduit?

I would not do that all in one trench. But then I see against all advice you will do what you want. Good luck if you get ground loops through your phone line. Best of luck when you have to upgrade your phone system when fiber takes over. What I would recommend is that you make sure that you run a large conduit for your phone line....make sure you have a fish tape in the conduit so you can pull upgraded phone lines if you ever need. OOPPSS I see you don't know what a fish tape is. Hmmm, go to Home Depot or Lowes and ask.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

I guess I am missing something with this fishtape advice, if you needed to upgrade your phone line would'nt you just tie a string to one end and pull it out the other end when the last of the phone comes out so does the string and it is then in the conduit ready to pull in new phone line,or make a rat out of a plastic bag with your string tied to it and take your shopvac to the other end of your conduit and suck the rat with the string tied to it in. either way it's no problem to get something old out of conduit and get something new in provided the conduit is large enough.