wiring question

[John]

I have a pond about 1000ft. from the house that I'd like to run an underground wire to for an aerator. Is this too long a distance? If not what gauge wire should I use?

Thanks. John

[Greg-EE]

[John]

[Dean Hoffman]

Would a solar powered or wind powered aerator be an alternative?

Dean

[Steve Smith]

John,

Your problem is going to be voltage drop. VD increases with distance and amperage. It also means that the power is being lost somewhere (in this case, your 1000ft wire) although the utility will still be billing you for it. Somewhere on your pump there should be a label or metal plate that tells you how many amps it draws, you're going to need this in order to determine how large the wire should be.

What you need is a wire gauge length table, incidentally a yahoo search for "Wire gauge length tables" turns up a few hits, one of which even includes a calculator

Keep in mind that there will always be some voltage drop, but it should not be any more than a few volts.

One option is to make the line out to the pond 240V, and then step it down to 120V with a transformer. This will half the amperage across the

1000ft, and as thus reduce the size of the wire needed. In fact, this is what the utility does and is why the voltage at the top of the hydro poles is 28,000+ volts.

At 1000ft your biggest cost is going to be digging the trench, in my locale it has to be 3ft deep. If you're going to all the effort you might want to consider extra capacity in case you want lights, or a fountain, etc out at the pond later.

-- Steve

[Craven Morehead]

#8 is much "over kill". 14 gauge is quite adequate. Make sure you buy the "direct burial" type wire and route it so you (or the next owner) won't accidently dig it up, later.

[Roy]

1000 feet of wire is a long run. If it draws much in the line of amps it won;t last long.

There are readily available tables on the web that shows what size wire is needed for actual amperage draw and run distance.

You need to f>===#8 is much "over kill". 14 gauge is quite adequate. Make sure you buy the

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[Gary Coffman]

There will be a 12.86 volt drop for a 1,000 foot run of #14 supplying a 1/2 hp motor. That's just barely acceptable for a 220 volt line. It would pose a definite problem with a 110 volt line.

OTOH, #8 would suffer a voltage drop of only 3.2 volts. That would be acceptable for either a 220 volt or 110 volt line.

Gary

[Doug Keachie]

Depends on 110 vs 220 volts, and the amperage of the aerator. just off hand I'd say #2 wire for the 110 to 15 amps, dig your trenchs deep ....

Doug