Underground electric question

CC, your electric guy is correct. It doesn't have to be conduit once it's underground. However, if you live in a rocky place it would be wise to put it in conduit. When I first started doing electrical work I worked for a electrician who wouldn't put underground cable in conduit if he didn't have to. About 10 - 15 years later I worked for another electrician and went around replacing a lot of those buried cables due to rocks working their way through the insulation. This second electrician that I worked for put all his service wire in conduit regardless of the condition of the ground.

If your panel box is going to be located on a outside wall, then you can come straight out the back of the panel box with a short allthread nipple into a rigid LB box and then down with rigid pipe to the rigid elbow. You will need a 1-hole or 2 hole strap to mount the pipe to the house at the bottom sill plate. Same with the well circuit, but can use pvc if you want with it.

Will have to caution you. The house foundation could and probably will get in the way of being able to just run a conduit straight down into the ground. Most generally you have to use two 45 degree elbows. So you would come straight down from the LB box on your wall to a 45 elbow at ground level, then a short peice of rigid to the next 45 elbow at the bottom of the ditch, then proceed with PVC pipe.

I hope all this makes sense to you. Good luck.

__________________
r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

Well as i say here if i already got my meter and a 200amp panel with a main and say the well is already hooked up at the pole I would run my wires and not bother any official folks at all . Yes you can use some conduit and not all the way i prefer all the way . They go to the proper depth and put on a sweep using U.S.E. wire The reason the conduit is grey is a color code so a plumber don't think it is a water line Me i would leave the electric Co and everyone else out of it If you already have your permanent meter and proper box already .

Contact your electric utility before anyone does anything. My utility co-op sent their engineer out and he mapped it all out. Gave me a printout with all of the specs.

__________________
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

Often your utility company is their own 'code' agency..... You really kinda have to do what they allow you to do.....


I would not drill the hole into the side of your basement wall. I would do the gooseneck up the side of the house & come through the sill plate. 'Here' we have a lot of water in the soil at different times of the year, & that would invite a lot of water to drip or spew into the basement. Not good. I have a lot of water seep in around the water line holes in the house. I'd not want to mix that water seep with an electric line......

You need to run the wire entrance to very near the main breaker of the house. You cannot run the main feed in on one side, and across 1/2 the basement over to the box. The feed wire should be very short inside the dwelling.

Your pump wires could be run from the box over by your transformer, don't have to come from the house. Perhaps from the house is closer? I would route the wire through the sill plate - again no holes in the basement below ground level if you can help it.

'Bare' wire you mean direct burial cable. Works fine 'here', you'd be looked at oddly if you wanted to put it in a conduit. Other places, they have trouble with critters or sharp rocks hurting the wire. But 'here', that would be the normal way to do it - direct burial wire.

I'd listen real close to what the local customs are and follow them _a lot_.... your utility company is the one that gets called whenever there are problems, so they tend to have picked up the best habits on how to make things work as hassle free as possible 'there'. They've done this 1000's of times, and their business depends on these things working & being low-hassle.

They _probably_ have some real good advise for you - if you listen?

We are an idependent bunch, but once in a while we don't have to re-invent the wheel all on our own. Other people/companies sometimes are trying to help....

Within reason, I'd listen & follow what they are suggesting you do.....

--->Paul