Under ground cable

[RobS]

<font color=blue>I'm sure you mean "low voltage" like malibiu lights. </font color=blue>

Yes, that and phone/cable are about all I would trust myself to bury. Maybe a short length of 110 for a post light or something, but I'd hand trench that (until I get that backhoe). I haven't yet approached the phone company about service to the new house but if they operate like the service here in our subdivision the wire will be about 2" below the surface. I'm thinking I can do better than that with a home made cable plow /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[beenthere]

I wonder what size the circuit breaker was to keep it 'hot'?

 

[chim]

Guess it depended a lot on the weather /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. Hopefully we talked him out of it. In good conscience, you need to try to help people avoid doing something that would result in "serious death or injury" as my one kid used to say.............chim

 

[runeare]

I don't know why you couldn't put the UF inside a coil of 1/2" black plastic water pipe and bury it together then. Any animal that chews through both of those and 8-12 inches of dirt well....
Cost for the black plastic pipe for 1/2" was $11.99 per/100'
It still wouldn't be code but....

 

[Inspector507]

There may have been some damage to the cable that caused some leakage. Best to install cables at the proper depth for safety. 24" with direct burial cable or 12" if it's Ground Fault protected. 18" for electric PVC not black poly tubing.

 

[rockyridgefarm]

<font color=blue>12" if it's Ground Fault protected. 18" for electric PVC [.blue]
Thanks for the answer. I always GFCI outdoor circuits, and didn't realize those could go 12" Am I correct to assume that electric pvc that has gfci could also go 12"?

I would like to find a good refernce for property owners that covers the NEC requirements? Is there any website, or is the NEC book/CD the only way to go?

 

[Ozarker]

I'll second that.

The cable to my well house was direct bury and supposed to be at 24". A couple of years ago my son was tilling around the well house at about 6" for my wife (she wanted to plant lots of flowers there) and he hit that cable. The tiller won and the cable was cut in two.

 

[Inspector507]

Mike,
The NEC requirements even for residential wiring is quite extensive when trying to read it all. You can get some info in books at home center stores, etc. But I have seen some that had direct code violations in them too. The way the NEC is laid out and written can be confusing for some people that don't use it daily.

 

[bmabe]

Inspector507,
I'll ditto that! I refer to the code in my business, but only infrequently. Even the index is is difficult for us non-sparkies to use. Having said that, it remains THE source and worth the investment if you want to keep your electrical work safe (which is what the code is really all about).

Barry

 

[bgott]

http://electrical-contractor.net/

They have a pretty good forum at this site. I don't know if they answer questions for folks that aren't professionals, though. You might, however, find a thread with the info you need.