Underground junction box

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mitch cochrell

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I am trouble shooting some pole lights in a parking lot at a commercial retail center. There is an under ground junction box in the middle of one of the lanes and is full of wires that are spliced. The box is full of water and when we turn the breakers on you can hear the conductors arching under the water. Is there any way to replace this junction box and have it water tight?
 
Lot of silicone and just redo every connection. Personally would solder them and shrink rap. Just no good way to make it last. Call it a design problem. Would been smarter to made splices within the poles at the covers.
 
also, you can use a wet/dry vac to get the water out of the box, sometimes it takes quite a bit of vacuuming to get all the water that is backed up into the conduits that keeps running into the box....
 
Your pretty much screwed down there with the high water table, when I come across one of these screw ups, I take the box out and replace it with an open bottom Quasite box. Set the quasite box on a deep bed of gravel to help drainage (will not work well were your at) seal connections as best as possible. I just got through fixing one that was buried almost three feet deep! Would not have know it was there, but logic dictated that's what someone had done, there was only one conduit out of the pole that was in the middle of a run.
 
make you lid tight

make you lid tight

remember gradeschool science exp-- when you invert a glass and push it underwater,the air is trapped in the glass and remains air tight. the same is true in a UG box, either have a airproof lid, or place a inverted coffee can or such on top of the joints to keep the joints dry.. the water level may rise, but there is trapped air (and joints) under the plastic coffee can...:smile:
 
mitch cochrell said:
I am trouble shooting some pole lights in a parking lot at a commercial retail center. There is an under ground junction box in the middle of one of the lanes and is full of wires that are spliced. The box is full of water and when we turn the breakers on you can hear the conductors arching under the water. Is there any way to replace this junction box and have it water tight?
Click to expand...

no. sorry.:smile:

3M makes a product called scotchcote, for waterproofing splices. if i've
gotta make splices in underground boxes, i assume they will be submerged
at some point or another, i leave the wires long enough to work with outside
of the box, and twist the wires together and solder them so i've got a good
connection, put a couple turns of tape an inch above the splice, so movement
of the wires doesn't extend to the splice itself.
then put wire nuts on them, and dip them into a quart can of
scotchcote. it fills the wire nut up, and holds up well.
 
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