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steveqvs
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:13 - Edited by: steveqvs
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I know most people strive for the off grid cabin lifestyle but when power came to our little slice of heaven we jumped at the chance. We still don't have a cabin and use a camper but wanted to size it for the future cabin. Warning I am a computer geek. I love to learn about stuff so I talked to a lot of people and did a lot of reading.
The power poles were installed pretty much at the end of our drive way and the power company here puts the meter right on the power pole. I was resposible for the rest. Actually we paid for the poles transformer, meter head too but that's another story! So I ordered up all the stuff I needed. 300 feet of four ought cable.... its actually 4/0 4/0 2/0 aluminum wire. Plus the power company wanted me to add an addition #4 wire ground since its a camper now. We had a backhoe dig our trench and put everything in conduit. Below is a picture of the meterhead and then the outdoor rated pass through disconect box. One interesting thing is notice there are other places (3 total) to hook up additional branches. We used this size of wire to get 200 amps to the site. Since its 300 feet we will lose a little (maybe) but I doubt we will lose much with the size of this cable. If you were to use copper it would be way more expensive but you could also go to 1 size smaller wire.
Electric Meter
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Electric Service Disconect
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steveqvs
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:15 - Edited by: steveqvs
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So here are some additional pictures. A picture of a ditch and a picture of the cable on spools.
Trench
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Rolls of cable on ladders
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steveqvs
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:16 - Edited by: steveqvs
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So we glued 3 sticks of the conduit together. Then we used a electrical fish and grabbed a rope though the conduit. This made it so we could pull the cable in 1 long run. I had actually a couple of fall back plans. One was to pull the cable through each 30' section but decided this would not be the best. The other plan was if the rope would break we could probably use the fish as it was 250 feet long and we could either pull another rope or even just use the fish. In the end we were able to use the rope we pulled through. We buried the first section so it wouldn't move then we used some sythetic lube and lots of muscle power. It was incredibly hard and hot that day.
Conduit and Rope
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Another conduit and rope
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steveqvs
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:28 - Edited by: steveqvs
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A couple of more pictures. It took a very long time and 3 times before we got the cable mated to the rope. This is a picture of one of the wrong setups. What you want to do is strip the cable about a foot of all the rubber coating. Then bend the wires halfway back. (We forgot to remove the rest of the rubber before bending the wires back) Remove about half of the bent wires. then wrap and tie the rope. The knot is in the front of the pull with the rope around the cable and the prongs of the cable bent back then you tape the heck out of it but you must make sure you are no thicker than the cable.... it was tough. took 3 times but we finally got it... and forgot to take the picture!
Cable end wrong way
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Cable end wrong way
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Cable end wrong way
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steveqvs
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:34 - Edited by: steveqvs
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So we did it. We moved the 30' conduit pieces into the ditch and glued the rest together. Very hard to pull. We had 2 people pulling and 1 person (me) stuffing at the other end and my wife feeding the wire from the spools. All in all it went smooth. Hard but smooth. Here is a picture of the hole filled in and the meter. We went right down the middle of the driveway so now I have more work to do....
Hope I haven't bored you!
Trench before moving conduit
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Filled in trench and meter
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Rob_O
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:35
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Congratulations on getting power, I'm working on that myself.
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hattie
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:41
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Congratulations! It sounds like you really did your homework and knew what you were doing. I'm sure it was a lot of work, but well worth it in the future. Great job!!!
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steveqvs
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2011 21:49
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Thanks to you both! I hope this helps. It was hard finding good information for a novice like myself!
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