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Need your advice.
I have installed 120v downlighting/moonlighting in trees out back to help illuminate pool area and create a nice effect (obviously) at night. Used cfl floodlights to create a moonglow through branches. I originally tacked the 1/2″ flex – plastic conduit with 1-1/2″ staples running up the trees from the j-boxes at trunk base. Since trees grow (who woulda thought?), the bark is now strangling and has broken the conduit and is cutting into exterior grade romex and will soon create a nice, though unintended spark show when it rains.
Does anyone know what the pros use for conduit or cable and how to attach to growing tree?
I appreciate your help.
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Of late when I've seen this sort of thing the stuff has been attached with cable ties. The cable ties will need to be "refreshed" every 2-3 years as they break down in the sun (or every 6-12 months if you use clear rather than black ones).
I always used weather-tight MC, fastened with galvanized clips using smooth box nails, in a short a lenght as would hold. Nails will "slide" with bark growth. If they set loose, a match stick will firm them up a bit.
I always told clients they needed to get into the trees about once a year and look over the fixtures and see if they were loose, infested with ants (who seem to like the current), or being over-grown by bark. Or, to have a decent tree service do the work. Dunno how many did. Couple had me back about once a year for a while re-aiming the fitures into the fuller canopies.
Oh, and the install that always seemed smartest to me was to run rigid (EMT or NMT) to the drip-line/root ball. Then have that turn up some nice descrete distance to terminate in an outdoor box. Then run the MC under the soil to the trunk then up. You wind up with a point that can be a disconnect if there's a future problem up the tree (or if it needs to be felled). And you can have an outdoor convenience outlet, too, with the right sort of planning. (Yanking up long runs of either direct-burial or tubing which then runs right up a tree can be under fun--even better is trying to tap in for a DPCV for holiday lighting or the like <sigh>.)
I put three strings of lights in my tree and i just loosened all the staples a couple of days ago.
There was a section that had broken off. So I soldered it back together and noticed a lot of the staples were tight.
What i ended up doing was pulling one leg of the staple out of the tree but still having it hook the wire.
If you want something more permanent you might have to have a fastener that stands off the tree. It would put the conduit an inch or so off the tree.
Personally I would just loosen the staples every year or so.
Will Rogers