There is outdoor use 110/120v wire.

All you do is put it beneath the ground, it is designed for that. No PVC pipe or conduit.

Just an example:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/100-ft-14-2-UF-B-Cable/202206547

 

Thanks all
To sum it up..I can use the above listed wire(30$)and 50 feet of the grey pvc(10$)
and be good?Cheaper than the outdoor extension cord I use.
I would like to use the conduit just to protect from a shovel,it will run along the edge of a landscaped fenceline...just in case

I'm not smart,but smart enough to ask and listen to the advice of experts...and I won't ever bury a shipping container or reuse plastic water bottles!::thumb:

 

Yes, there is a specific wire for direct burial. It is usually grey in color. It doesn't have a paper liner in it. The direct burial wire is harder to strip, but otherwise the same as indoor wire. I wouldn't even bother to bury indoor wire, it won't last long.

 

Yes, there is a specific wire for direct burial. It is usually grey in color.

There is outdoor use 110/120v wire.

All you do is put it beneath the ground, it is designed for that. No PVC pipe or conduit.

Yes they do make a cable for underground use, it goes by a UF12/14 nomenclature, however if you have gophers/squirrels moles, etc you will regret not putting it in PVC. (UF stands for underground feeder)

Rancher

 

Normal Romex (house wire) is not rated to go inside PVC pipe.

 

It has to do with the PVC pipe being considered a wet location, due to it being outside, however you can use UF cable in PVC outside.

Go figure...

My problem is that the gophers chew the UF cable, it rains the cable gets wet the hot lead shorts out to the bare copper ground lead, the solution of course is don't connect the ground lead back to the power panel ground... which is of course against code.

Rancher

 

While the white wire isn't rated to get buried, and the white PVC might lead someone doing some trenching to believe they can dig through it without getting killed....

I say go for it.
Even the grey wire gets dug through when I'm out there gardening... And the white PVC does just as good a job protecting the wire (from my shovel).

When I was a kid.... I buried a lot of the regular white wire... Without problems...
I've buried both the white and the grey, as an adult... Not much difference to my use... I dig through both. So.... Yeah.... Use PVC... White, gray, whatever.

 

One other thought, there is outdoor rated power wire and outdoor rated PVC as well. I used the outdoor rated PVC in a garage build since it exceeded required code.

 

Look at the National Electrical Code NEC.
You can run rated cable or loose wires in a schedule 80 conduit if you use moisture rated fittings. That is the short answer.
Do not, repeat not run romex in irrigation pipe unless you are a fool.

 

Look at the National Electrical Code NEC.
You can run rated cable or loose wires in a schedule 80 conduit if you use moisture rated fittings.

The problem with the NEC and cable in a schedule 80 is that you must still OBEY their fill factor rules for conduit, and they feel that romex or UF is round (the largest dimension) and therefore it will exceed the fill factor of ... I believe it's 75% in a 3/4" conduit, either PVC or EMT.

You aren't getting inspected so it's whatever you want to do, until you sell the house and the next guy digs it up and gets electrocuted.

Rancher

 

I have talked to linemen who said that conduits usually fill with water even in dry climates. I can't figure how that would happen to one that was well sealed unless perhaps the pipe breaths in moisture laden air and it condenses and over the years it builds up. Even so I usually put my underground wire in conduit, because it seems like you eventually have trouble with an underground wire.

 

I have talked to linemen who said that conduits usually fill with water even in dry climates.

They are correct.

 

Now that the smart guys are gathered here, can you bury coax cable?? Does it have to be anything special?? I have a security system I bought cheap at a garage sale that I eventually want to install with cameras some distance from the house. I haven't cut into the wires in the kit yet, but the connectors are just the two conductor quarter turn lock type. How they power the cameras, send them messages, and return the camera picture with just two conductors must be magic.

 

How they power the cameras, send them messages, and return the camera picture with just two conductors must be magic.

The power is probably DC, the video coming back is AC, or RF, or it could be magic, in the engineering world we call it FM, or F..ing Magic.

Rancher

 

By all means use a GFI breaker or duplex. Check to make sure that your panel has a copper ground rod.

 

A copper clad ground rod?

 

Used to be solid copper rods for grounds, but now maybe they cost too much.

 

Copper-coat 8 foot rod is only $10. Meets the newest electric codes.

 

Don't run standard romex through any significant length of of buried conduit. You can run UF through conduit, but it's somewhat redundant. You CAN run single strand thhn wire through buried conduit. In other words, you can use the romex you have if you remove the outer jacket and paper and just use the conductors (including the bare ground). The difference is about heat dissipation rather than any risk of short circuit.

Personally, I would go ahead and buy some pvc conduit instead of using irrigation pipe, it's got thicker walls and isn't terribly expensive. You don't need schedule 80 unless you're running under an area subject to vehicle traffic. Schedule 40, 6" deep is fine for a 120 volt branch circuit running under a yard.
If you're running under a driveway or something, then you need schedule 80 buried 24".

 

Putting UF-B in PVC conduit is kind of no-brainer as far as I am concerned. Conduit is less then $2 for ten feet. Very cheap. Having that conduit leaves something you can hit with a shovel and feel - before cutting into a wire.

Even when using bigger USE - URD #2 or #4 cable - I still prefer to use conduit. Cheap investment.

 

I sorta hate to bring this up but you should not attach electrical things to live trees. Your light should be on a pole and not the tree.

 

O.K.,its no problem to put in a 4x4 post.

Right no its just held in place with a bungie cord-can you explain why that's a danger?Just asking,not argueing.

 

I know this is kind of off-topic, but has anybody here been to MrBeams.com? They sell a number different kinds of battery-operated LED lights for outdoor use, and no wiring is required.

 

I know this is kind of off-topic, but has anybody here been to MrBeams.com? They sell a number different kinds of battery-operated LED lights for outdoor use, and no wiring is required.

 

For outdoor use 12 volt and solar powered lights are a lot safer and easier for the average person to install. Plug in a small transformer to a duplex and then everything will be 12 volts.

I was an electrician a long time ago, and I will never forget the words of my friend who has done it for a career. "The closest I ever came to getting killed by electricity was a strong jolt in a moist but not wet ditch from plain old 110 volt line. It was not high voltage, or working on a panel, it was simple low voltage in the wrong set of conditions."

 

For outdoor use 12 volt and solar powered lights are a lot safer and easier for the average person to install.

Actually yes, Wally world sometimes has 70 Lumen floods for... about $35.00, and I do have one mounted under a tree, and it still does a pretty good job, still very bright at 2 AM in the morning.

I was an electrician a long time ago

PPINE, I will keep this in mind, I am not an electrician, but an EE that thinks he can wire stuff up.

Rancher