Pulling electrical wire -

   / Pulling electrical wire - #11  
(electrician suggested dishwashing soap).
i wouldnt recmond soap as ther is a good posiably to break the oinsulation down over time
i would recmond u.l approved wire pulling lube
 
   / Pulling electrical wire -
  • Thread Starter
#12  
I would love to be able to use direct burial wire. But too many gophers around that would love that stuff for their (last) meal. And I will use 3/8" rope for the pull, and perhaps even metal 45 deg. elbows at the turns instead of PVC, if that's allowed.
 
   / Pulling electrical wire - #13  
8NTX,
I can tell you what the NEC® says, and I can tell you what'd I do.
The NEC® says no more than 360° of bends in a run between pull points (thats the important part). If you have an "LB" fitting at the house where you go in, the count starts there, because you can pull from the "LB" fitting. Keep in mind, if you swerve around a tree or anything else, that is still a bend in the pipe. Also if you follow the FPN on voltage drop, a circuit load of 20 amps at 240Volts for a distance of 600' will give you 234 volts at your load end, well within limits. With the wire(copper) sizes you're considering, you'll need about 1¼" PVC. Pull boxes in the middle of the run are not required if you can stay under 360°. All pipe connected together before you pull it.

Now for what I'd do if it was me.
I'd run 1½" PVC(18" or more deep) with a pull box midway (no way would I want to pull a 600' run). Check into a Quazite box they use for freeway and traffic lights. You can drive over them without breaking it. Invest in the wire lube, makes all the difference in the world. Just don't try to use anything petroleum based or liquid soap, it will destroy the insulation. Pull with a rope, never a jet line or pull string. If you have 4 90° bends you might consider using rigid metal 90's. If they are 18"(or more) deep you're okay. The rope will not damage the interior of the metal 90's.
Hope this helps..........if it didn't, send me a private message or e-mail.

NO DISWASHING SOAP!!!!
Did you hear me???
 
   / Pulling electrical wire - #14  
Yeah, the gophers are a definite issue. I don't know how deep they usually dig around, but I'm hoping a 24" deep trench is enough.

Since you're only going to be running a few sporadically-used systems, have you considered just running a generator? Since the 600' run is going to cost you around $4 a foot in materials, and then a ton of labor to install, it might make sense. Or, if you have sunlight, a solar system might make financial sense. Just thinking out of the conduit here...
 
   / Pulling electrical wire - #15  
   / Pulling electrical wire - #16  
We just finished a house about 16 months ago and it involved a straight pull of 3 wires 660'. I don't recall the wire gauge, but I do recall that the wire weighed one pound per foot per strand, or 2,000 lbs total.

Having it hooked up at one end makes no sense. That means you'd have to unwind all that wire and lay it on the ground and drag it into the conduit. We had it on 6 wire spools and did it in two sections (3 spools at a time) with a pull box in the middle. That was tough enough. On one pull, we faked out (unrolled) a spool of 300' of wire thinking it would slide through the grass/weeds easily. What a mistake. Once it was out, it took two guys just to move the single strand. Even on the spools, it took 3 guys, two feeding it into the conduit, and a guy on the other end with a 1,000 lb pull winch pulling it through. Pulling a maximum of 330', (even off 3 spools turning on pipe frames) was a tough job. If we tried to do it in one length, we'd have been handling 3 spools of wire weighing 700 lbs each, and pulling a total of nearly a ton of stiff wire through a conduit at one time. We couldn't have done it.

We used a 45 degree sweep to ease the wire into the conduit, and had no 90 degree turns.

Believe me, I didn't want to spend the money on the pull box, but it turned out to be money well spent. The advantage of a pull box in the middle would allow more bends.

That's my 2 cents, unless I misread your message. Good luck. Let us know how it went. How ARE you going to pull all that wire?
 
   / Pulling electrical wire - #17  
#4 is not going to weigh nearly a pound a foot, but I sure hope he has access to a "tugger" and reel stands /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
   / Pulling electrical wire - #18  
And a few buddies
 
   / Pulling electrical wire - #19  
thnn #4 approx weight per 1000 foot 155 pounds
 
   / Pulling electrical wire - #20  
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( My electrician says all the conduit MUST be assembled first )</font>

Can someone explain to me why it needs to be assembled first? I've heard that before and I've seen electricians do it, but personally, I'm like Junkman; I've run wire through conduit as I assembled it. May have been the wrong way to do it, but it worked, and I'm wondering what I've missed.
 

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