Running Electrical Service in Underground?

[rwalter]

Hello Everyone.

Well I thinking about running the electrical service into my cabin via and under ground conduit. I currently have a 200 amp pole service installed which is about 100 feet from where the service will enter the house. I thinking about on putting in a 150 amp service in the house running from the pole underground in PVC conduit. However does any one now how deep the cable and conduit has to be burried? Also does any one else have a hints or tips that might save me time or money?

[Amanda_931]

Not mucn.  We ran some in a Ditch Witch^tm trench down to the barn.  I do hope it was at a reasonable depth.  Maybe as much as 2 ft. down.  It went very quickly.  Got the thing back well within four hours, even including the mandatory trip to the car wash.  It was covered with dirt.

Prices to rent a Ditch Witch seem pretty high.  Might have been as reasonable to find someone who had one and was used to doing it and hire it done.   Especially if it had been a longer run, like the one my neighbors had--probably a thousand feet or so.

[keyholefarmhouse]

I've run several underground elictrical lines and was advised not to use conduit.  The heat needs to disipate.  You might check with local power company.  In town our codes are four feet deep with one foot of surrounding sand, in the country two feet with or without sand.

[Okie_Bob]

If I understand your situation correctly, you have service already existing on a pole and I assume you have a breaker box or disconnect on the pole after the meter? If so, you probably can do whatever you want. If your service is going to be buried to a meter on the house, you will need to have an electrican do the hookup and he won't be able to do that without an inspection by the power company. That depends, of course, on your power company and codes in your area. In E TX, where I am building, the power company won't hook up a meter without a licensed electrician being present and if it's buried, they make an inspection of the conduit and depth it is buried before the electrician can do the hook up.
Okie Bob

[Amanda_931]

And we used buryable cable, no conduit.  No sand either, although that sounds like a good idea.  

The guy who was working for me at the time worried that the trench was down the side of a (tractor) driveway, could get shifted by whatever drove over it.

I do have some European friends who believe that utility poles and overhead lines are disgusting.

[Laura21]

I do have underground service installed on my property. An electrician installed it since I have no experience in this area   . He dug the ditch to the street and ran the wire through conduit. The electric company did inspect the work before they gave me power even thouh the meter is out at the street next to their pole.

Laura

[rwalter]

If I understand your situation correctly, you have service already existing on a pole and I assume you have a breaker box or disconnect on the pole after the meter?

Bob you are correct I have a pole service. That service which I had to pay an electrician to install includes a main disconnect switch and a 200 Amp breaker box with space for 6 breakers. It also includes a couple of GFI outlets installed on the pole.

Now this pole was place up the hill about 130 feet from the road at the edge of the clearing so the over head wires run through the trees so they are hard to see. What I want to do is run a 150 amp rated cable underground the last 100 feet to the cabin that way there will be no over head wires to view in the clearing.

[Okie_Bob]

Then I would think you are good to go with whatever you decide to do. Again, assuming you have no code or inspections to deal with, what you do from the meter is your business. If it were me, I'd run conduit, buried a couple of feet underground and use a good copper cable with NO splices underground. They have a way of causing problems in the near future no matter how good you make them.
Good luck.
Okie Bob