Distance Allowable on Electric Run Question

[woodlandfarms]

I have two projects for this spring... Hoped to do them myself... But I wanted to make sure I have everything calculated...

I would like to put up an electric gate on our property. that would place it about 700' from the main house. Can 10 Guage hooked to 110 deliver close to that at 15 Amps. I think the gate is rated at 2 amp draw.

Second, the wife want a green house. There is a 220 line running out to an old well head. I was thinking of tying into that and splitting it to give her two 15Amp 110V legs out there. It is around 200' from the house. The line is newer (past few years, yellow jacket, so I think 10 guage).

I checked a couple of websites and it looks like my drop would be only a few volts. Not sure that anything we are using would be affected.

But, for whatever reason, I seem to remember someone telling me you cannot exceed 100' run.

Love some comments on this before I tell the wife it is a go on the projects.

Carl

 

[DieselPower]

You want no more than a 5% voltage drop at the end of your line.

10GA copper wire at 120 Volts AC with a 2 Amp draw would have a 2.47% voltage drop at the end of 700 feet leaving you 117 Volts AC.

The maximum you could run off of the 10GA line would be 4 Amps. 700 feet, 120 Volts AC with a 4 amp draw would have a 4.95% voltage drop at the end of 700 feet leaving you 114 volts.

Not knowing if you might want to do something at the end of the driveway in the distant future you might consider stepping up to 8GA wire. 8GA would be good for a little over 6 Amps at the end of 700 feet and the voltage at the end would be 114 volts which is a 4.66% voltage drop.

Online voltage drop calculator for 120 and 240 Volts AC.

And the NEC voltage drop calculator in Excel file format.

The only problem is I don't think you can run parallel wires at that distance. It's somewhere in the NEC code 301.4.

 

[BB_TX]

For that kind of distance, I think I would consider one of the battery powered gates with solar charger.

 

[Mike120]

I agree with BB, go for battery powered. Although I have 120V circuits out to both of my gates, they only power the trickle chargers to keep the batteries charged. Solar works as well. They are very nice to have during a power outage.

 

[JHFV]

I have a solar powered gate at my house. It has a solar panel about 10" x 10" and it goes into a battery that sits in a panel box on the gate post. Its a marine battery. The gate is a 16' long rod iron gate. very heavy. It works perfect.

 

[woodlandfarms]

I have a solar powered gate at my house. It has a solar panel about 10" x 10" and it goes into a battery that sits in a panel box on the gate post. Its a marine battery. The gate is a 16' long rod iron gate. very heavy. It works perfect.

Was my first thought when I bought the place this summer. In the winter, there is no sun down in the ravine... It would be a Solar Boat Anchor.....

But the trickle charger could be interesting... Maybe unnecessary if I have run the juice all the way there.

Now to cost out 700' of 8 guage...

 

[schmism]

Now to cost out 700' of 8 guage...

stranded wire or NM? if stranded your gonna need twice as much

 

[BB_TX]

You could put the solar panel on top of a pole or at the top of the ravine. The wiring from the solar panel could be small as it would only be carrying milliamps.

 

[woodlandfarms]

So let me add to the question. One of the systems I see is a 24 volt battery with a charger hooked to it. Would my voltage drop be an issue if I was just feeding a step down transformer?

Also, the pole for solar is an idea. I estimate it would need to be 120' high to get some good light... It is a nasty ravine next to hill that blocks all winter sun. We get ice in november, it melts in march even if it 40 out...

 

[firefighter9208]

Woodlandfarms,

Check out the following web site. Mighty Mule Gate Openers They have gate openers that are battery powered and you run a 16ga. multi-stranded dual conductor direct bury wire from your house to the gate. You put the transformer at the house. They say you can run the wire up to 1000'. They get 34 cents a foot for their wire, but I have found 16Ga. multi-stranded dual conductor direct bury landscaping wire at Home Depot for about 12 cents a foot. I am sure that this wire would work the same. You can rent a direct bury trencher at Home Depot for about $80.00 a day to bury the wire.

My gate is about 900 feet from the house, so I haven't yet decided to use the landscaping wire or go with a 5 watt solar panel. Mighty mule has a chart that shows with a 5 watt panel you can open and close the gate 8 times a day.

Chris