So, I'm planning to run PVC conduit underground from the house to the new shed. The shed is on blocks rather than a slab, 11 feet from the house. The good news is I have access to the space under the shed (although not much room to work or dig). The bad news is that I can expect the shed to settle a few inches over time.
Due to zoning requirements, I was forced to place the shed in a spot where the door of the shed is at a 90 degree angle to the house and the side of the shed is facing two large windows. Between the windows and other obstructions, the only reasonable place to exit the house with the electrical is between the windows. It would save me a ton of digging (and kep the diggeng well away fromt he water pipes) if I could just run the trench straight out from the house to the side of the shed and run the conduit above ground, under the floor of the shed (attached to the bottom of the floor I guess) and then up through the floor at the front. Does this sound reasonable so far? I haven't found any category in the NEC that this seems to fit into easily. (My county goes entirely by the NEC).
Aside from the digging I have two other issues:
1) I expect the shed to settle, so the connections from the underground conduit to the shed can't be too rigid. If I CAN run above ground conduit under the shed, that solves the problem by using PVC and running the first few feet at a slight upward angle under the floor. If I have to run the conduit underground to the front and come straight up through the floor, how do I handle this? A section of flexible conduit somewhere? I could brobably make a sliding joint with two sizes of conduit, but there's sure nothing about THAT in the NEC... They talk about fittings with expansion joints, but that won't quite cut it. Other ideas I'm not thinking of?2) Running the conduit down from the eve, across the yard, up out of the ground, under the floor and up is more degrees of bend than allowed in one pull. The reasonable thing would seem to be to come out of the ground at the side of the shed (under it?) and place a 90 degree, weatherproof "pull box" there (it escapes me what those fittings are called at the moment). Does this have to be a minimum distance above ground like an outlet box in the yard, or if it's waterproof is it just treated as part of the conduit?
People must deal with this issue on a regular basis, but I can't find anything on an accepted method.
Thanks for your time...