direct burial cable or put it into a conduit?
- Thread starter Tazz 316
- Start date
tigerwillow1
Known around here
This feels to me like a ford/chevy opinion poll. There are so many issues specific to your situation, and personal preferences like cost and expected lifetime that I don't even want to vote. I'll just say for my ~2,000 feet of buried cable I went with all of it in conduit. Luckily most of that was before PVC conduit exploded in price the last few years.
You're exactly right. There are people that have pulled in CAT cable with a CMR jacket into conduit 10-15 years ago without an issue. We only hear the GOOD reports of such a practice. You likely won't hear of the BAD reports.
Water gets into underground conduit, mostly because the conduit at some point comes up and into above ground boxes, etc. and *Thermal Differential Cycling provides a means to pull moisture in but not to let it out.
My point?.....Use flooded burial or direct burial wire even inside of underground conduit IF you install conduit for protecting against gardening, gophers and shovels otherwise just go with the same direct burial / flooded burial conductor right into the ground with NO conduit. Personally, I would not waste my time pulling a CAT cable with only a CMR, CMP or CMX jacket into underground conduit...just be prepared for the stories from those that have had success doing so.
The HDPE jacket of a cable rated for direct or flooded burial is also more resistant to slits, cuts and abrasions from sand, grit and rocks in PVC and metallic conduit slivers that may work their way in during installation or pulling..
* Thermal Differential Cycling : the device heats up during day, air inside expands, cools off at night and contracts, drawing in damp outside air, condenses, travels to low point, is trapped and won't escape during warm up cycle, just continues to collect inside at low points.
-TonyR 2020
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A animal decided to chew on mine and break a few wires, they dug it up. I did not have it buried very deep living in a rock pile county makes for hard digging. It was a couple of young foxes.
Just need to find some decent female to female couplers for a short term fix.
Just need to find some decent female to female couplers for a short term fix.
AP514
Pulling my weight
tigerwillow1
Known around here
If you use that coupler outdoors it will have to be in a sealed enclosure. If that's the case I'd go with a punchdown coupler, expecting it to have better reliability.
Another option is a "waterproof" coupler I use a few of these in underground boxes. I don't think they're meant to be buried. The underground boxes generate condensation that creeps into the coupler, and I've found that a little dielectric grease on the gaskets has fixed that problem so far. You can find both of these from multiple sources.
IAmATeaf
Known around here
If you do put the wire in conduit then don’t you have to try and make it watertight? Else in the ground it might fill up with water in which case the cable will permanently be in water or at least damp?
When I ran cables from my house to the garage the cable was put into plastic conduit which the guy sealed by gluing all the joints in an effort to keep the water out?
When I ran cables from my house to the garage the cable was put into plastic conduit which the guy sealed by gluing all the joints in an effort to keep the water out?
tigerwillow1
Known around here
I expect any conduit to be filled with water, at least in the inevitable low spots. If the cable is undamaged, it shouldn't be affected by the water. Even if no water flows or leaks into the conduit, condensation will eventually fill it up.
CanCuba
Known around here
As has already been suggested, I'd do both. As long as the added expense isn't an issue.
As said above @tigerwillow1, condensation finds its way into underground conduit even when it is conventionally glued. This is mainly because most conduit will exit the ground at some point to a box or condulet that is either not completely watertight OR if it is, it's physically connected to another inlet source of air with moisture, like a house.
Then the Thermal Differential Cycling I mentioned in post #3 takes over.
Theoretically I guess it's possible to take extreme measures to permanently exclude moisture from the conduit but IMO, it's much easier to just use cable with a jacket rated for flooded or direct burial .
dudemaar
Known around here
You could just bury 1” poly water line with some direct burial inside it.
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