Wires stuck in underground conduits

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dmagyar

dmagyar

Senior Member
Location
Rocklin, Ca.
At my home I'm trying to rework my existing pool pump & simple intermatic timer, adding a new variable speed pump and control panel powered from the existing underground conduit. Trouble is the wires have been in the ground here for 16 years, they're stuck. When the original pump went in the pool installer only pulled #14 wires and hence my problem I'd like to install at least a 30/2 circuit. So far I've poured about one cup of clear wire lube down the conduit at the panel end. I've even tried using compressed air and a few cup fulls of water to help distribute the lube, rusty water comes out the pool end, & the wires are still stuck and won't budge. I'm not getting any dirt out of the pipe at the pool end just a little rusty water. Runs about 120' long.
Plan B: there's a second conduit going to the back of the house only 90' long, it has a #12, 3 wire 120 volt circuit, and guess what? they're stuck too. Tried the soap down the pipe, with a little water and then the air hose, no luck but the outflow looks like the "black" water that the sprinkler fitters are always dealing with.

Plan C is to run a new conduit along the side of the house, then underground to the pool pad.

P.S. At least I didn't have to bid this, but failure is not an option no matter what it takes.
 
jumper

jumper

Senior Member
Location
3 Hr 2 Min from Winged Horses
Big time wire puller and removal tool.

imagesqtbnANd9GcRjDEY5l3T0SqfdYBLxWGMJ9EHAKK3Oy5aPNgy9O6XOeCkQOYUqvQ.jpg


or a come along.:)
 
Ponchik

Ponchik

Senior Member
Location
CA
Occupation
Electronologist
I think i read in a trade magazine that mineral oil works great when you have old wiring that is stuck in a conduit. But in your case if the conduit is galvanized and has been underground for a while, it may have been rusted, broken and filled with dirt, so the mineral oil may not do anything.
 
ActionDave

ActionDave

Chief Moderator
Staff member
Location
Durango, CO, 10 h 20 min from the winged horses.
Occupation
Licensed Electrician
dmagyar said:
At my home I'm trying to rework my existing pool pump & simple intermatic timer, adding a new variable speed pump and control panel powered from the existing underground conduit. Trouble is the wires have been in the ground here for 16 years, they're stuck....
Click to expand...
That's why you should change your underground wiring every few years. I try to do mine every time I get new brake pads on my truck.

A few more thoughts-

Did you try and send a fish tape through? Can you abandon the stuck wires and pull in new without overfilling the conduit?
 
don_resqcapt19

don_resqcapt19

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
retired electrician
See if you can find some Polywater "CableFree". http://www.polywater.com/cablfree.html
You have to be very careful with using any type of mechanical pulling device on conductors that small. You will just break them off in the raceway and then have a real problem. One method that has worked for me is to put them under tension for long periods of time using a come-a-long. The trick is not to break them. After they are under tension, hitting the cable to set up vibrations often helps.
Look at it this way...it is kind of like trying to remove tape by pulling parallel to the tape. It doesn't work very well. The vibrations set up forces that are closer to perpendicular to the conduit and break the conductors away from the conduit. It does take a lot of time. For large cables there was a pulling machine that did this automatically, but I have not seen one for years.
 
S

Strife

Senior Member
dmagyar said:
At my home I'm trying to rework my existing pool pump & simple intermatic timer, adding a new variable speed pump and control panel powered from the existing underground conduit. Trouble is the wires have been in the ground here for 16 years, they're stuck. When the original pump went in the pool installer only pulled #14 wires and hence my problem I'd like to install at least a 30/2 circuit. So far I've poured about one cup of clear wire lube down the conduit at the panel end. I've even tried using compressed air and a few cup fulls of water to help distribute the lube, rusty water comes out the pool end, & the wires are still stuck and won't budge. I'm not getting any dirt out of the pipe at the pool end just a little rusty water. Runs about 120' long.
Plan B: there's a second conduit going to the back of the house only 90' long, it has a #12, 3 wire 120 volt circuit, and guess what? they're stuck too. Tried the soap down the pipe, with a little water and then the air hose, no luck but the outflow looks like the "black" water that the sprinkler fitters are always dealing with.

Plan C is to run a new conduit along the side of the house, then underground to the pool pad.

P.S. At least I didn't have to bid this, but failure is not an option no matter what it takes.
Click to expand...

I'd definitely go with plan C. You'll never get those wires out 120' away.
 
Fulthrotl

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Location
HB, CA (19 Hrs. 22 Min. from Winged Horses)
Occupation
E
dmagyar said:
At my home I'm trying to rework my existing pool pump & simple intermatic timer, adding a new variable speed pump and control panel powered from the existing underground conduit. Trouble is the wires have been in the ground here for 16 years, they're stuck. When the original pump went in the pool installer only pulled #14 wires and hence my problem I'd like to install at least a 30/2 circuit. So far I've poured about one cup of clear wire lube down the conduit at the panel end. I've even tried using compressed air and a few cup fulls of water to help distribute the lube, rusty water comes out the pool end, & the wires are still stuck and won't budge. I'm not getting any dirt out of the pipe at the pool end just a little rusty water. Runs about 120' long.
Plan B: there's a second conduit going to the back of the house only 90' long, it has a #12, 3 wire 120 volt circuit, and guess what? they're stuck too. Tried the soap down the pipe, with a little water and then the air hose, no luck but the outflow looks like the "black" water that the sprinkler fitters are always dealing with.

Plan C is to run a new conduit along the side of the house, then underground to the pool pad.

P.S. At least I didn't have to bid this, but failure is not an option no matter what it takes.
Click to expand...

'mkay... rusty water so this is GRC, yes?

i've got one of those kinds a pipes on my pool, and aggressive soil where i live... they have a local
code for stainless steel ground rods.....

that pipe outside diameter after forty years bare in the dirt is about an inch and a half, and rust completely filled the inside.

try blowing the poly water unsticker into it from both ends... i'd try first of all, flooding it with water and see if you
can get a decent stream thru it, then blow as much of the water out with compressed air as you can.... then put
a couple quarts unsticker down each end of the pipe, doing one end at a time, and blowing air in that end to push
it out as far as it'll go... then repeat the other end, this way, you won't blow out the first end's filling.

then let it sit a couple days, and try breaking one of the wires loose at a time.... if you can get them loose, tie a number
12 stranded on to the end, and try pulling them out slow and easy with a come along. steady pressure is the solution.

depending on how much rust is in there, i give you a one in three chance of success, moving quickly towards a 0 in three
chances of success.

if you ge them out, use the stranded #12 as a pull string, don't use string or mule tape to pull with. it doesn't go thru
splintery icky pipes.

don't ask me how i know this.


good luck.....
 
dmagyar

dmagyar

Senior Member
Location
Rocklin, Ca.
Follow up

Follow up

Jobs finished, used a combination of blowing polywater into both ends of pipe, tried cable free also, not sure if it helped or not. Had to eventually dig out, find underground conduits, cut both, installed "christy" box.

Never did get the wires freed from the first 90 below ground under the panel. I was lucky that the two conduits leaving the panel underground (1/2" & 3/4") ended up running alongside each other. When I found the first, the other conduit was right underneath.

Results are: now new variable speed filter pump running at reduced speed and load, down from original single speed motor running 1640 watts at 3450 rpm, to 245 watts at 1400 rpm on the variable speed. That due to the law of "'Affinity", where when flow of liquid in pipe is reduced by half energy required is only one-eight of original. :thumbsup:

Savings: 12 hours run time= 2.94kw, subtracted from original 6 hours run time at 1.64KW=9.84kw, resulting in 6.9kw savings per day or $68.40 per month.
 
N

norcal

Senior Member
dmagyar said:
Jobs finished, used a combination of blowing polywater into both ends of pipe, tried cable free also, not sure if it helped or not. Had to eventually dig out, find underground conduits, cut both, installed "christy" box.

Never did get the wires freed from the first 90 below ground under the panel. I was lucky that the two conduits leaving the panel underground (1/2" & 3/4") ended up running alongside each other. When I found the first, the other conduit was right underneath.

Results are: now new variable speed filter pump running at reduced speed and load, down from original single speed motor running 1640 watts at 3450 rpm, to 245 watts at 1400 rpm on the variable speed. That due to the law of "'Affinity", where when flow of liquid in pipe is reduced by half energy required is only one-eight of original. :thumbsup:

Savings: 12 hours run time= 2.94kw, subtracted from original 6 hours run time at 1.64KW=9.84kw, resulting in 6.9kw savings per day or $68.40 per month.
Click to expand...

You use a IKEIRC control, or other? Read that PG&E*, & SoCal Edison are paying rebates for controls like IKERIC, have a decommed IKERIC control that am going to strip the VFD out for other uses.

*Is Rocklin in SMUD or PG&E territory?

http://www.ikeric.com/
 
2

220/221

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Plan C is all that will work around here. The soil and water conditions just eat up the IMC, even though it's wrapped. The inside just gets corroded and the wiring will not pull out.

If accessible, you can sometimes cut the conduit after/before the 90's and work with the straighter pulls. Get the wires out, pull something thru to clean out the crud and repull.
 
dmagyar

dmagyar

Senior Member
Location
Rocklin, Ca.
Swabbing conduit manditory, before rewire

Swabbing conduit manditory, before rewire

Of course, nothing worse than being tantalized by clearing wires from conduit then not getting new wire installed because of some foreign object logging inside pipe stopping everything. Part of what broke the wiring loose was pushing a fishsteel carefully with wire lubbed swab attached through the conduit with the stuck wiring.

P.S. I also used the Pentair intelliflow variable speed pump, easytouch controller & UV sanitizer to update pool equipment.
 
Last edited:
M

matt55

New member
Location
Phoenix, AZ
Same problem here

Same problem here

I've got the same problem the OP had with the underground conduit to the pool pump. Its about 120', been buried probably since installation of the pool 33 years ago. the piece connecting to the switch at the pool had actually corroded and broken off where it entered the ground. I want to replace that last 5 feet or so of conduit at the end and need to replace 2 of 5 wires in the conduit (shorts, most likely due to the corroded section digging into the wire).

I'd prefer to pull the wires out and put new ones in rather than dig a trench for 120'. I've just started to tug at the wires and they don't budge, haven't given it a 100% try yet...but wanted to ask it you guys think it is even worth trying to pull them out at that point given the years. I believe it thwn wires in a metal conduit. Dug up a couple sections of conduit and its a bit rusty on the outside, no idea about the inside. The section where it had corroded through at the end was pretty bad though...obviously.

So, should i even try to pull or should I just dive full force into a new trench???

Thanks in advance!
 
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