Running electric down driveway?

I'm missing something here. Out here on the farms, I have a 1/3 mile driveway, & mine is short. Some have a mile drive. The transformer needs to be by the buildings, so they really have to run their high voltage to the yard.

My REA would supply overhead for 'free', or underground 4000 (or 72000, or whatever it is these days) volt feed to the middle of my yard for 50 cents a foot.

I don't know how they can limit you to 150 feet from the road. In a ruial area.

My buildings are scattered, got 2 runs over 400 feet from the transformer. Takes some _real big_ cable to supply 200 amp service for that distance. Don't know that you can afford to run 240v cable for a 1/4 mile. You would need to run the step transformers, which is not cheap. Really, you need to run the high voltage into your yard, & the transformer there.

The REA burring armored cable 4 feet deep down the center of the driveway into my yeard, 700 feet I think it was. Heck of a cable. Made a mess of the driveway with the vibrating blade, but I'm happy.

Anyhow, something just doesn't seem right. To be in buisness, they need to bring power to where you need it, not just drop it off on the side of the road. Is there some sort of argument between you 2, they want to go overhead, or they want you to have public easement to continue the line, or some such?

--->Paul

I have _never_ seen primary run UG without concrete (other than some backyard work in houston, though I have done alot of fiber optic like the above. Then again, I have been out of dirt work for four years now.

I believe that. I look at the cost analysis on some of my projects and we're talking sometimes 5-7K a pole! I don't know all the technicals nor do I bid work but by my uneducated estimate, when pay, insurance, fuel, profit, is all factored in, I would say work is being done at least; I'd say $500 an hour. Then there was the "$17,000 pole." That is how much it cost to replace a single pole one time during storm work. All it had on it was a three phase arm, no less.

If the soil conditions are favorable, I would definitly go underground. Problems are just simply reduced significantly. The power company will charge by the foot laid for the cable although most of the actual time will be spent on making the splices in the transformer and at the pole. Put it this way, underground can be fairly economical OR massively expensive, all depends on the soil and terrain; there isn't too much in between.

I take an interest in all of this because I plan on installing my own system in a few/next years once I get my house project up and running. A lot easier to build a house with on site electric available. I check ebay every so often for supplies. I've seen some good transformers there on the cheap.

As a final bit of advise, all I can say to save money for someone who has no idea what is going on, is to try to dig whatever is needed by yourself whether trenches or holes. If poles are being put in, a surveyor will come out and steak where the poles are going. Call the power company up to find the length of poles being put in then dig holes about 2ft in diameter at 10%+2 deep (Ex. 40ft pole would need to be set at 4+2=6ft deep). I remember one old geezer dug 14 holes to his house and probably saved over half the money. These holes were is rocky conditions no less so the savings to him were substantial. A lot cheaper to rent an auger and have one man grind away at rock than to have a four man crew, with all the strings attached, from the power company come out. Then you are paying $500 an hour for what amounts to one guy keeping his hand on the "dig" lever.

I've only seen concrete used on industrial applications where large 750+ cable is being ran through ducts.

That reminds me, remember to run other services in the same ditch. I believe there is suppose to be a specific clearance between the fiber and power but from what I've seen, those fiber guys don't give half a care. Must not make a difference then, I suppose. I can't help you on that side of things but all that stuff is self enclosed in a tube also, bright orange.

PS: I had to include a cheap jab

Well most of the companies I worked for did government/industrial mostly, and perhaps we just went overboard on our few res jobs.


Lol, I've done both, but I've pulled way more wire than I've ever plowed in fiber. I've done a bit of overhead work as well, but realized I was too fat to be 50ft off the ground on gaffs. :-)

C.J. I see you are in Ozarks. We had 1/2 mile underground thru Ozark Electric CO-OP out of Mt. Vernon, MO. This was in Lawrence Co. Not cheep, talk to the engineer from your electric co-op He will have the answers for you. Glenn

I'll have my hubby put in a call to the engineer at White River. It's actually been about 4 years since we inquired, and this was on our former land.

thanks for all the feedback, if we can't go underground, then we'll definitely be going offgrid, no biggie either way.

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Just got to remembering. My wife's sister and BIL bought a 10 acre plot full of big hardwood tree's. They picked a place out on top of the little hill and thought it would be beautiful live in the middle of the woods all sucluded.

The electric company had to have a total of 30' clearance to run the overhead electric to the new house. By the time it was all over with the better looking tree's were all gone and there was a huge cleared path that everyone can see from the main road all the way to the house. They were no longer sucluded like they thought they would be.

I had to ask dh because I couldn't remember three years ago. lol Burying the elec line was not an option, he said, it isn't that the elec co wouldn't do it but we would have had to pay big bucks for it.
Now the phone line and water, we made the 1700' trench (deep, 3') for the water line ourselves, it only needed to be 18 inches but we wanted it deeper and then laid the pipe ourselves. The phone company had a machine that made the shallow trench and laid the line, pretty cool machine. We thought it odd that they wouldn't put the phone line on the elec poles like we are used to but was told the elec co and phone co don't like each other for some reason.
You said you don't want to have the poles by the house. I don't like it either but we had to for the transformer.

I can't comment on the regulations on going underground but I can comment on the off grid pricing. We looked at land that had no utilities and wouldn't be having them in the near future unless we wanted to spend around $30,000. A river had to be crossed w/ the electric.

I looked into solar. I priced out what we would need. Our biggest user would be air conditioning. We would also have a BIG generator. Being in Okla. no air is not a good option for us as we like to breath. If we lived anywhere furthere north, then fine no biggie.

I figured out that no air would be less than $10,000 and w/ air (limited to a few rooms only and small units) doubled it to around $20-25,000. On that piece of property it would pay to go solar but most utility capable pieces of property just won't pay for solar. The upkeep and maintenance for solar is just too much of a pain. The wind turbines are much worse. Looked at those too. Not figured in at the $25,000.

We just installed poles on our acerage and the house will be 900ft. off the road. the elec co. put the poles in for almost nothing but to run it underground from that far would have been really bad. The transformer couldn't have been 900 ft from the house so they still would have had an easement and the wire from the transformer to the house keeps getting bigger the farther it is from the house so lots more money. I too was hoping not to have overhead lines but it was just not going to happen . I hope you find a good alternative. I will be interested to soo how you go so I hope you will keep us updated. If you don't mind no air then off grid would be perfect and if you are willing to spend the $20,000 then you might also be great for solar and air.

When we brought in power and went underground we had the trench dug about 20 ft off the road with a tree barrier between their easment and the road. They still have their easment but I don't have to look at it. CJ feel free to come by and take a look at our set up. It might give you some ideas.

That huge cleared path is exactly why we don't want power lines above ground. Ugh.

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Thanks Blue, we'll call and discuss it with them again, but we will probably end up going offgrid, which was our original plan.

I do not want them to have an easement on our land. Which is why we wanted to run and maintain the 1/4 miles of lines ourselves.

Part of the reason we thought maybe we should install electric was so that we could setup the well to use now, when we go there in the RV. Since our well will likely be a minimum of 400 feet deep, we need an alternative way to get water out other than solar.

Into a holding tank is fine... what size genset would be needed to pump a 1.5HP pump at that depth? We keep a 3000watt gasoline genset in the RV, but I doubt that would be sufficient.

Would the pump of choice, if planning to be offgrid still be a regular A/C pump? I can't see ever having it pumped, at that depth, with solar.

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I hired a trencher, bought the underground cable from a utility supplier, and ran my own line 2000 feet from the electric companies transformer/meter to my house in the woods... The cable had to be quite large to handle the voltage drop due to 2000 feet. I think the cable cost me around $5000, the trencher, about $600, and the electrician who helped bury the cable, around $3000 for three days of work. About 1/3 what the utility wanted....

Cab, by doing the underground line yourself, did you have to give the power company an easement?

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My power company gave me the choice of poles or buried but they said they preferred to bury it. They said that in the long run it is better for them since there aren't trees coming down on lines during wind and ice storms. They also don't have to spend money doing tree trimming. Don't have troubles with lighting hitting the lines or poles as easily either.

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Respect The Cactus!

I didn't have to give an easement as the line is mine. Their responsibility ends at the transformer and meter.

Cab, that's what we were thinking. Hopefully we'll find out soon. I think I'd still prefer to go offgrid, but I wouldn't mind have the electric (without the poles) as well.

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'Here' there is no easement to continue the lines on to other areas. I assume they have a right to inspect & maintain the line into my yard - it is their line & safety issues. The way farms are set up & distance between yards, it wouldn't make sense to continue on from my yard anyhow.....

Are you sure the easement is to expand the line to other areas; or is it just to maintain the line?

I can understand your resistance to that, I'm just not familiar with it so my comments earlier.

--->Paul

When we built in WI (2000) we had to have power brought on the property. We weren't that far from the road and only had one pole to cross the road onto our property, and then it went underground from there.

When we got the paper work from the electric company, they wanted us to give them a blanket easement on the entire 40 acres! They told us that was "they way they always did it" We pitched a fit, and in the end had them draw up the easment that gave them just enough room around the wire to the one pole.

That area of WI has high power lines crisscrossing the country side. I guess with all the blanket easements the power company had got over the years, they could pretty much run lines where ever they wanted.

Cathy