running 100 amp service to shop through 2 inch pvc conduit. I have the correct size wire, just cant think of it. 4 copper wires. 120 feet (2) 90’s. i got a 150 foot snake and will pull rope with it. The question is.
How much of the lubicate soap do I need to pour in the pipe. I,m ready to use a five gallon bucket full.
(3) 4 awg and (1) 6 awg
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Replies
4 little wires in 2" and only 2 bends doesn't sound like any lube is needed, esp if DW pushes the wire from the feed end.
Re: "4 little wires in 2" and only 2 bends doesn't sound like any lube is needed"...Been down that road too many times. About the time I figure a pull will be dead easy the Murphoid nature of plastics, cables and conduits raises its ugly head. Once saw a 40' straight run defy a crew for over an hour. You could look down the conduit and see the other end. And yet the conductors refused to go in. They figured it would go in so easily they could just push it in dry. It bound up at around 20'. So they ran a fish tape and made up a quick and dirty head. This too bound up and refused to move. They pulled the hook out of the tape. The conduit was wet and they assumed that it would slide right in.About this time my crew got involved and we reran the tape and pulled in a rope. To this we made up a real head and broke out the lube. Even then it didn't go in easily. Had two helpers and a journeyman grunting like they were giving birth pulling it in. We never did find out why it was so hard. Joke was that the head was afraid of the light. Once it got into a warm, dark spot it wanted to stay. We debated rerunning the conduit but the cables were, and remain to this day, almost twenty years later, from what I hear, electrically sound. The lesson being that: Shy of someone holding a loaded gun to my head I will never go to a site without some sort of pulling lube. I seldom stuff anything bigger than a #12 down a 2' section of 4" without lube. Every pull has to be assumed to be a difficult one. Use any reasonable methods that will make it easier. If it slides in like it wanted to to be there then no big deal. Your out a few bucks for lube. The larger and longer the pull the more I try to overestimate the difficulty. Having a pull jam often means backing the pull out. And that can easily multiply the time involved and can damage the insulation. Once saw three pulling crews, each of which would normally do two or so major pulls a day, spend a day backing a pull out, inspecting the cable an inch at a time, and pulling it back in. While we were busy inspecting the cables a labor crew did yeoman labor digging out the broken conduit connection and fixing it.I will add that on any pull a pair or two of those latex smeared gloves and a couple of old towels makes things easier. The former help to grip the slick cables and the later in clean-up and getting the lube off the hands and tools. On the up side Yellow 77 does keep the hands soft and smooth.
Good points, I defer to your extensive commercial experience.
FWIW: The hardest pull I was ever involved with was in 1970, pulling a 100% full** 4" 2024 T3 aluminum conduit 110 ft long with one about 90 degree and 2ea approx 45 degree bends. Obviously, this was NOT NEC, it was on the SST prototype airplane for test flight (cancelled in 1971). All of the wiring was teflon sleave shielded pairs for instrumentation, minimum size was critical as there were penetrations thru wing spars, etc. Used a 3 ft long, thin nylon chinese finger for a pull attachment, totally saturated cables and conduit with commercial lube, 10,000 pound winch to pull and ten guys on the push end. NO GO! Finally sprayed the inside of the conduit with PAM vegatable spray for cooking and got it pulled thru. Probably 20 people involved for most of a full day, at aerospace labor rates, could have wired ten houses for the same $$$.
Everybody knows I'm cheap (but dont rat to the local code authorities about this), but once pulled 3 ea 8 MTW wires and a 10 AWG THHN plus a TSP 16 AWG thru 130 ft of abandoned underground 1" polyethelene water pipe for a 'bootleg' conduit run with no problem, no lube.
** 100% full means here that you could not even fit a 1/4" dia rod into the conduit with the wire inplace
"Everybody knows I'm cheap (but dont rat to the local code authorities about this), but once pulled 3 ea 8 MTW wires and a 10 AWG THHN plus a TSP 16 AWG thru 130 ft of abandoned underground 1" polyethelene water pipe for a 'bootleg' conduit run with no problem, no lube."That is now "legal".There is a new type of conduit, HDPE.I suspect that it is fairly close to PE water line.
Actually my rough guess is that other than your choice of conduit your installation would be alright.As I remember it 3 - #8 THHNs are OK in 1/2" trade size conduit. Less than 40% fill.
I would figure two quarts. A gallon at most. I would use Yellow 77 as it is easier to handle and clean up.
This, in the scale of things, is a short pull. 'Soap' a bit a a time and pull it in. Try to develop a rhythm. Try to get the lube spread fairly evenly. A thinner even coat does more than large gobs with sections left dry.
FYI, 4 AWG with 90 degree C insulation is rated for 95 amps, and that's before any ambient temperature correction factors.
120 foot run => 240 feet of wire => 7.4 volts drop @ 100 amp, or 3% of 240V, for this feeder.
I'd bump the conductor size up, if it were me, especially if you're supplying single phase motors with big startup currents.
And yes, I'd think this would be an easy pull. If you want to use lube, just have the person at the feeding end lather some on the wires as they're going in.
Its a 100 amp subpanel to the shop but never will ever come close to running 100 amp at once. maybe 60 amp at best.
This type of pull is in my future, so out of curiousity, how does 120' become 240'? If it were only an outlet 120' away, the run would be just that, right? And for a 240V sub-panel, each hot carries 120 volts over 120', so hence my confusion.
This type of pull is in my future, so out of curiousity, how does 120' become 240'? If it were only an outlet 120' away, the run would be just that, right? And for a 240V sub-panel, each hot carries 120 volts over 120', so hence my confusion.
It becomes 240' when figuring voltage drop because, for 240V, each hot conductor is carrying current, therefore there is voltage drop across each of them. The percentage drop is then:
[(current in amps)*(2*120 ft.)*(resistance per foot)/(240V)] * 100
120V circuits will see the same percentage drop; if you assume balanced current in the neutral there will be no voltage drop through it, but the denominator is now 120V instead of 240V. Conceivably it could be worse if the load were so imbalanced that the other pole had little current draw while the pole in question was drawing close to 100, but that shouldn't happen with the big loads on 240V and proper panel layout.
My sparky yelled at me as I was abt to glue up. He chose to run the wire thru separate lengths of conduit BEFORE he glued them together. Made sense to me.
cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
This is not kosher. "He chose to run the wire thru separate lengths of conduit BEFORE he glued them together." There is an entire sentence in the Code which says the wires must be pulled into a complete conduit system.
As for the pullong and lube, perhaps you could lube the conduit before pulling the wires in. This will coat your pull rope making it slippery to pull on. An alternative is polywater if you want to get technical.
Perhaps Mr. Lorn's proplem could have been solved had he tried feeding from the other end. Perhaps one of the conduits [assuming PVC] was not fully inserted into its socket.
The head should be minimum diameter -- no wider than the total diameter of the entire bunch of cables.
~Peter
As I posted to 4lorn1, this was the only time I saw that happen. I don't know why that particular sparky chose to do it. A responsible reply - thankyoucheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
O.K. got the wire pulled, no problem. had to do it by myself. you know how friends are on the weekend, especally if the beach is close by. Had to keep walking to the beginning to give it some slack so I could pull. you be amaze how much 150 of wire laying on the ground weighs. I use about a gallon of lubicate, talk about a mess. I got another gallon left over, wonder what type of practical joke I could use it for.
If it is Yellow 77 it makes a decent anti-rust agent. Slather it of the steel with a course bristled brush and let the tools lay out in the hot summer sun. On a piece of tar paper or roofing iron is best. As the metal warms the water and solvents evaporate and the wax melts into the grain of the metal. Lay them out late morning and by mid-afternoon they are good to go. Wipe off the remainder with a terry cloth towel.Hydrogel, or was it one of the other gels, is reported, by a manufacturers reps in a supply house, or so the gentleman said, in the gay community. A mystery what they do with it but I understand that they pay something like $20 a quart for a tub of it.Some of the lubricants make for great oil parties and adult 'slip-n-slide's. Run plastic down a slope and smear on the lube. Mist lightly to make it extra slick. Great fun. When the slide runs down to the lake, the BBQ is cooking, a bonfire is going, the beer is flowing and the music is good. Once rigged a slide into the surf seaside. A fun time was had by all.
Running the conductors before the conduit is assembled is a poor technique. Usually you see this sort of thing with amateurs who don't know much about, and are afraid of, pulling wire. Or one-man crews that are too cheap to hire the help necessary to pull some runs. Rare to find a situation where it is any easier than doing it correctly.Actually a violation of code. One of the few articles that deals with methods instead of a requirement when finished. Good chance he damages the insulation, a problem that may take years to show up, and/or glues the wires into the conduit, making removal or replacement a PITA. When done in a ditch it often means that the conduit has a lot of dirt in it. dirt, crud, and especially stones, can make pulling wires, in or out, a real joy.Any luck at all and he will end up doing both. Which could require a replacement of the conduit run when a problem shows up. Possibly better if he had run direct burial.
An informative reply - thankyou. This was the only occasion I've seen thqt happen, and for what reason I know not.
By the way - where've you been? HAven't seen you posted much in the last 3 weeks (since I stated posting). Used to be that your nickname cropped up in FHB pages some years ago, and I thought then, as I think now - what a wonderful nickname!!!cheers
***I'm a contractor - but I'm trying to go straight!***
The way I would do it would be to string the wire through the sections of pipe then glue them together as you go (put through pipe then through elbow then glue those pieces together) makes it easier, that wire doesn't bend very easy
problem is: they was buried a couple years ago when I trench for the house. they are at least three foot down and part of it has concrete slab poured over.
The way I would do it would be to string the wire through the sections of pipe then glue them together as you go (put through pipe then through elbow then glue those pieces together) makes it easier, that wire doesn't bend very easy
yes, it sounds easy. In reality, this is extremely slow, and a real PITA. After gluing on each section, you'd have to wait for the glue to dry before pulling the string past the joint. If you don't wait, and do this too hastily, you get some cement from the inevitable little bit of squeeze-out on the string. the string ends up getting welded to the inside of the conduit. Now the pull gets harder rather than easier, because you have this length of string attached to the inside of the conduit interfering with the pull.
Sucking a string through a conduit run after it's completed is easy, so there's no reason to try to install it during glue-up.
You would be surprised how fast you can blow or suck a rat or parachute through even a long run of conduit. Long time ago we had to pull in strings for future needs in existing runs. They were around 400' foot runs. We used a vacuum. The rat, a foam rubber plug, came through so fast that at first we thought that someone had left one in the conduit near the end. Or at least that ours had come off the line. Even at around 400' it took only seconds to get there.Also don't worry too much about the stiffness of the wire. Electrical fittings have a radius that smoothly handles the bending process as long as a bit of lube is used. Of course all bets are off if you are silly enough to use plumbing fittings or make non-standard bends in the conduit.A standard 'shop vac' will pull the line in easily. Remember that most vacuums will also blow. Something to remember when dealing with water filled underground conduits. Which is to say most conduits if they have been underground for long and there is rain or groundwater present.Lacking power at a site a gasoline leaf blower make a handy, if a bit loud, tool for the same job. Just be sure to screen the entrance because your average blower, rigged as a vacuum, will such up the parachute and about a thousand feet of line faster than the average human can react and sucking a hundred gallons of water, which keeps coming for a few seconds after you stop pulling, doesn't do them a bit of good.Water filled conduits are great for initiating your young and gullible apprentices. Stuff them into a manhole and tell them to look down the conduit to spot the rat. Have the man on the other end use the vacuum to blow into the conduit. A conduit full of water, water that has lain stagnant for a few months so it is both florid and fragrant makes for an unholy, and memorable, baptism. Welcome to the electrical trade.Best be prepared to sooth, comfort and possible break up a fight. Having towels, a change of cloths and libations ready helps. As does a sense of humor. Unless your attempting to precipitate a confrontation avoid this sort of thing first thing in the morning, in cold weather, and with help that lacks humor. Ten minutes before quitting time with a bar nearby it goes over more smoothly.