Home feeder

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Esthy

Senior Member
Well, today I am a pest. Are you familiar with this type of feeder? Less expensive than conventional wiring in conduit? Familiar with prices?

Underground Service Entrance Cable. 600 Volt. AlumaFlex ? Aluminum Alloy (AA-8176) Conductors.
Cross-linked Polyethylene (XLP) Insulation. Sunlight Resistant.

Cable shall be UL-listed Type RHH or RHW-2 or USE-2, suitable for direct burial and operation at 600 volts. Conductors shall be AlumaFlex TM aluminum alloy as manufactured by Southwire Company or approved equal. The cable shall contain a triple extruded white striped neutral conductor and a solid green grounding conductor to eliminate the need for field marking per the National Electrical Code.

RECOMMENDED SAMPLE SPECIFICATIONS:
Cable shall be UL-listed Type RHH or RHW-2 or USE-2, suitable for direct burial and operation at 600 volts. Conductors shall be AlumaFlex TM aluminum alloy as manufactured by Southwire Company or approved equal. The cable shall contain a triple
 

Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
That looks like what we call typical "mobile home" wire.
4 conductors, all insulated, (2) blacks, (1) striped neutral, & (1) green (EGC)

For 200A that supplies the entire load we are allowed to use 4/0-4/0-2/0-4
For 100A we use 2-2-4-6 if supplying the entire load.

The 200A wire costs about 2.65 per ft plus tax
The 100A wire is about 1.05 per foot plus tax.
 

augie47

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Staff member
Location
Tennessee
Occupation
State Electrical Inspector (Retired)
Just make sure of this part:
Cable shall be UL-listed Type RHH or RHW-2 or USE-2,

There is XLP (crosslink poly) that does not have those listings.
 

Esthy

Senior Member
Whoa, this is a cheap price for the 100. I will need 25' to supply the Mobile Home I was talking about in another post. Apparently this is new in the market. Will AHJ approved this in WA?
 

Esthy

Senior Member
Sorry, but not necessarily only for Mobile Homes, can we use it as a feeder for separated buildings as garages, etc.?
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
Whoa, this is a cheap price for the 100. I will need 25' to supply the Mobile Home I was talking about in another post. Apparently this is new in the market. Will AHJ approved this in WA?

USE is hardly new.

Unless WA has an amendment changing the NEC they have to accept it.


That said I am not a fan of direct bury conductors, at some point they will fail and digging will need to be done.

PVC conduit is cheap, long lasting and keeps you from digging more than once.
 

Dennis Alwon

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Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
USE is hardly new.

Unless WA has an amendment changing the NEC they have to accept it.


That said I am not a fan of direct bury conductors, at some point they will fail and digging will need to be done.

PVC conduit is cheap, long lasting and keeps you from digging more than once.

I agree 100% . I refuse to use direct burial cable unless it is in conduit. I install mobile home cable in PVC once because they didn't have what I wanted in standard conductors.
 

Esthy

Senior Member
But I can install it in conduit is this is so inexpensive and cost less than individual conductors
 

Dennis Alwon

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Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
But I can install it in conduit is this is so inexpensive and cost less than individual conductors


Yes it is cheaper to run underground cable. IMO, it is not a great job especially if the soil is a bit rocky. I prefer to go a step up. Not everything is about the money. Ask the customer what he would prefer and see if he would spend the difference in the money.

USE cable costs more than individual conductors but the PVC and labor adds a bit. It is not that much difference but that is all relative to what you consider a lot. I would rather have the peace of knowing what I did will not be an issue down the road
 

Esthy

Senior Member
My situation is diferent, all our "customers" are senior with low income or not income at all and we supply the minimum repairs to keep them in their houses and not going to the streets or .... I retired and re-entering again the market and I am the only licensed at the facility and I donate a lot of materials that I had left from my business and even with a grant, there is not enough money for the repairs and any penny I can save is a dollar win. Most of them live in old mobile homes.
 

GoldDigger

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Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
This post is froze in the 1st page and I cannot go to the other pages. Problems?

One thing that usually works is to add a post yourself.
But if you do not have anything to say, just go into General Settings and change the number of posts per page.
The glitch only happens (and only occasionally) when the thread hits your setting for the number of posts per page.
 

Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
Yes it is cheaper to run underground cable. IMO, it is not a great job especially if the soil is a bit rocky. I prefer to go a step up. Not everything is about the money. Ask the customer what he would prefer and see if he would spend the difference in the money.

USE cable costs more than individual conductors but the PVC and labor adds a bit. It is not that much difference but that is all relative to what you consider a lot. I would rather have the peace of knowing what I did will not be an issue down the road

I hope the part in red is a typo. Because four individual conductors are way more than USE (mobile home wire) cable here.

For the record, I always try and talk the customer into putting the USE-2 in conduit because I've seen first hand what happens to the aluminum when the insulation gets a cut or nick in it.

Also, I may or may not have seen someone put the cable in the conduit as each section was added because of the difficulty in pulling that stuff through conduit, especially if there are many bends in the run.:angel:
 
I've seen direct buried cable that was nicked, and it developed a "rock" of what I guess was an oxide where moisture got into the conductor and was leaking current directly to the ground. I could actually hear the buzz of the current flow. And it was on the customers side of the meter. Kinda hard on the electric bill.

Also had gophers chew the cable.

PVC conduit is the only way to go.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I've seen direct buried cable that was nicked, and it developed a "rock" of what I guess was an oxide where moisture got into the conductor and was leaking current directly to the ground. I could actually hear the buzz of the current flow. And it was on the customers side of the meter. Kinda hard on the electric bill.

Also had gophers chew the cable.

PVC conduit is the only way to go.

If it is aluminum conductors it doesn't last for too long before the conductor becomes open circuit - then you have problems that the user notices - hopefully not the neutral that gets opened.

That white substance is aluminum oxide, what you get when aluminum oxidizes. In sandy soils sometimes you even get quartz (sand) that has turned to glass from the heat involved around that bad spot in the conductor, it is not clear window quality glass though.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Multiplexed USE conductors are nothing new - marketing them under "mobile home feeder cable" may be a newer idea but they have been selling some form of multiplexed conductors for at least 40 years I think, it is commonly called URD. You need to watch what you get as not all USE is rated for use inside buildings, but this stuff marketed for use as a mobile home feeder likely is rated for indoor use.

It may or may not be cheaper then other methods - as has been mentioned I think it is a supply and demand thing. If you go to an area that uses a lot of this stuff - it likely does cost less then some other options just because the supply houses are purchasing it in larger quantities.

ADD: also note that this is not a chapter 3 cable assembly - is it just three or four USE conductors multiplexed into one assembly. It can be direcely buried without raceway because it is direct bury rated, but when it emerges from underground or is run inside a building it must be inside a raceway.
 
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Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
I am having a hard time believing that the USE cable is cheaper than using individual runs of THWN or XHHW.

The 200A wire costs about 2.65 per ft plus tax
The 100A wire is about 1.05 per foot plus tax.

I already posted the price for the USE-2 cable.
If I bought the same thing in individual 2/0 THWN it costs $1.44 ft
So just two of the four conductors is already more than the USE-2 cable.

1' of USE-2 cable (4 conductors) = 2.65
2' of THWN ({2} 1' conductors) = 2.88
then add on to that the cost of neutral and EGC would make it at least $4 per ft for (4) individual THWN conductors.
 
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