What is this Wire Used for?

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Little Bill

Little Bill

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Tennessee NEC:2017
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Semi-Retired Electrician
I had a neighbor stop me the other day and ask if I could use some copper wire. I said maybe, what do you have? He didn't know other than it was copper and he found it in the road.

It was a spool of 12 AWG wire with a blue jacket. Best I can read on it, it says.."12 AWG PE Tracer Wire 600V". It also says..."caution water line buried below".

I have never seen this before and wondered what or how it's used. I'm sure some of you have. That's why I'm asking you guys!:)
 
Little Bill said:
I had a neighbor stop me the other day and ask if I could use some copper wire. I said maybe, what do you have? He didn't know other than it was copper and he found it in the road.

It was a spool of 12 AWG wire with a blue jacket. Best I can read on it, it says.."12 AWG PE Tracer Wire 600V". It also says..."caution water line buried below".

I have never seen this before and wondered what or how it's used. I'm sure some of you have. That's why I'm asking you guys!:)
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It is placed above an under ground non metallic water line in order to use a a cable locater to locate the pipe. You see the same thing with yellow insulation used on non metallic gas lines. They leave one end accessible to attach the sending unit. Often you see the wire end sticking up around gas and water meters.
 
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texie said:
It is placed above an under ground non metallic water line in order to use a a cable locater to locate the pipe. You see the same thing with yellow insulation used on non metallic gas lines. They leave one end accessible to attach the sending unit. Often you see the wire end sticking up around gas and water meters.
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Thanks, I figured it had something to do with some kind of tracer but didn't know what.

Wonder if I can find a good use for it?
 
renosteinke said:
How about .... giving it back to whoever it was stolen from?
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Glad you have such a high opinion of me. For your information, my neighbor is a deputy sherrif, and he found this wire and has held on to it. No one claimed it so he asked if I could use it. I didn't put all that in the OP as it had no bearing on my question.

1-2-3-4-5-........ Was told to count to 100 so I wouldn't get mad and say something I shouldn't.:happyno:
 
kwired said:
Water and gas installations around here usually just use THHN/THWN for tracer wire, @ $0.28 per foot I guess I know why.
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Same here, they use warning ribbon 1' above gas and electric here and all water here is copper, only gas is plastic which gets a tracer wire right on top of it, if you get to the tracer wire you have already hit the gas line, they do this so the depth will be correct on a tracer unit to the gas line other wise it would only tell you how deep the tracer wire was.

and yea I can get 2500' spool of THHN/THWN for $289.00 which is way lower
 
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