Splice 220 volt 6 gauge line outside- is it safe?

[gfretwell]

The crimps you see on submersible well conductors would be fine. It is an irreversible crimp with silicone in the shrink tube insulation. The problem is you need the right tool to make the crimp and the one for

6ga wire is probably $100. I did see a guy who went to work on a 36" Harbor Fright bolt cutter with a grinder to make a big crimper. It seemed to work OK.

Not necessary but portable generators are coming with a GFCI these days. I often wonder what the fault path is if it is on rubber tires and not connected to the house panel. Maybe they need to ground it.

I see those every time we have a hurricane. People back feed the dryer.

[Ralph Mowery]

A generator I bought about 2 years ago shows to install a ground rod at it and has a place to hook the ground wire to the generator frame.

[gfretwell]

It must not be listed as portable.

[dpb]

...

I found used crimp tool with the rotating head for a wide range of sizes on eBay for very reasonable price...don't recall just what, but about $50 for it and an assortment of splices I seem to recall. It's been a life-saver more than once; first when needed to get the heaters to the cattle pens working during winter...later had a supply line fail one side to shop. It's a buried line and the crimp has held up just fine for about 5 years so far...

--

[dpb]

On 7/9/2020 7:15 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

...

A related sidebar Q? --

Is there anything/any way to repair knicked insulation on an underground feeder? Or just go ahead and cut to use the splice kit?

I managed to cut insulation on one side of feed to house during the work around the old foundation when discovered the conduit out bottom of outside junction box wasn't nearly as deep as had presumed Dad would have left it...and, unusual for him, there was virtually no slack in that line to be able to really do a good job wrapping it (...both of which make me think he must have sublet that work instead of having done himself--just not characteristic of something he would have done on own. He worked on remodel/refurbish of grandparents house for 5-6 years and had to take off for real job of farming for extended periods during summers so let out some of the work).

I sorta' cobbled a tape job w/ some of the cold-vulcanizing tape followed up w/ electrical tape and then covered that with a good coating of one of the liquid rubber products as water seal -- then covered it after dried w/ another tape wrap. We'll see how long it holds...

Was more than unhappy when discovered what had done... :(

[gfretwell]

If you don't have a GFCI on the circuit you will never know. The worms will stay away from that area tho.

[dpb]

This is/was one of the two power feeds TO the house...but there isn't a GFCI on the place...

[dpb]

On 7/10/2020 12:29 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

I was just curious if there was any product for the purpose other than cut and splice...like a a magic shrink tube that could get in the middle of a run... :)

[Dean Hoffman]

Would something like this have worked? Put the actual splice away for someday and use the insulation.

[dpb]

Could have done, looks like. Hadn't seen before. Other than price.

Thanks, bookmarked for reference.

[gfretwell]

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral. FPL wants them in conduit.

[gfretwell]

I suppose the potting compound they use on pool lights would meet the intent of the code.

[gfretwell]

If they can show me a U/L listing mark it is OK by me. Amazon didn't as far as I could tell.

[dpb]

There's no question it's mine...it's from the meter to the house; it's at the house end. Did it while digging up an abandoned water line that got tangled up in the augur while sinking a shoring footer under the foundation. Turned out one of things discovered is the kitchen/sunroom added on the house in the late 20s was just poured on the ground with no added footing below it...also that the old water entrance went along that wall and hadn't been removed when Dad re-did the new water service that penetrates wall in same area just N of the electric service entrance.

It's UF direct bury, there's conduit both ends; just the conduit this end extends only a couple inches below surface instead of several inches to a foot that I expected...so was a little too vigorous with the shovel the first stab or so...

[Ralph Mowery]

Later the OP said it was between the meter and his house.

If it had been on the power company side, it would not surprise me that if he turned it in they would not charge him for not calling the free power line and utility locaters to have them mark the line.

I needed a few stumps ground out a few weeks ago. As it is about 200 feet from the power pole to my house and meter I called the locaters and they marked the line. Good thing I did as the power line went directly under a small tree ( about a foot in diameter) that the previous owner of the house had put in. That way the grinder just took the stump to a few inches below the ground instead of his normal distance. Probably would not have gone down far enough to get into the power line, but no use in taking any chances.

[dpb]

...

All the utility (our local rural electric co-op) lines are above ground, hard to miss them. :)

I did before we started the remodel hire a local to come out and stake out the actual locations where Dad pulled the new feeds back when he redid the house (late 70s/early 80s) as I was in VA at that time and while I knew roughly where they went, the exact location and which way he chose to run the feeds to various locations from the pole I did not know exactly. So, I knew where all were between pole and house, shop car garage and outside service to the old septic overflow tank pump...

What I did was based on an assumption that the conduit would extend at least 8" or more below grade where it came out of the box...I knew/could see/was working right at that location, I just made the erroneous assumption I didn't have to worry until at least several inches further down than where the conduit actually ended.

[dpb]

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed the overhead wire to the house...

[gfretwell]

The FPL policy is that the meter is on your house, not at the hand hole in the right of way and that you own the service lateral. They will sell you insurance but otherwise fixing it is on your dime, even if they do it.

[invalid unparseable]

On Thu, 09 Jul 2020 20:15:26 -0400, [e-mail] posted for all of us to digest...

For the rest of the posters, look for a U tube poster named Benjamin Salstrom (sp) One of his latest videos is of a generator with a floating ground vs a bonded ground. He also does some interesting experiments that I would not try.

Another video is why a seperate ground rod will not blow the breaker. He uses hot dogs instead of humans. Draw your own conclusions.

There are also vids on U tube by power companies and why they emphasize to leave their downed lines alone. They also use hot dogs. IIRC Pepco was the best but I'm not sure anymore.

[gfretwell]

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that insulation but it does perform better underground than UF. I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried. It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.

Most of our older homes are served with overhead drops but newer houses, particularly in HOA type places have all buried infrastructure. There are no poles anywhere except light standards.