undergroung break in URD

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nichols21vt

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Customer just called; evidently they lost one hot leg to the house on their direct burial URD. Service is 20 yrs old, not in conduit.
Does anyone have a tried and true method for finding the break to install a direct burial splice?
 
I will fix broken URD's. Normally it's from a stone that worked its way through the insulation and the aluminium conductor rotted away.

I flatly refuse to fix failed UF and lead sheathed cables. Experience has shown me that this is a never-ending process, once UF and lead sheath begins to fail.

I know why utilities, with many hundreds of thousands of miles of buried conductors, often bury without conduit. For an electrician, I consider it almost inexcusable to do underground work with direct burial cable and not use conduit.

Matter of fact, for the typical failed UF to a residential 'post light' I can do a trench and redo the run in PVC for about the same price as a UF break locate and repair.
 
mdshunk said:
For an electrician, I consider it almost inexcusable to do underground work with direct burial cable and not use conduit.
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Agree 100%, with the costs and hassles involved in digging a trench I can't imagine not dropping some conduit in the hole so it will never have to be dug up again.
 
I had that happen at my house, good thing was it was POCO's wire... no charge to me... I was hopeing the break in the wire was under the road, so I could change my meter to a meter with main breaker, but no such luck...
 
stickboy1375 said:
... I was hopeing the break in the wire was under the road, so I could change my meter to a meter with main breaker ...
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Stick, you've just got to explain that, please.
 
sorry, i'm relocating by panel in the garage to the basement, but I need a main breaker meter to do this, it would have been great to do it at the same time as the wire fault, My poco can be a pain in the xxxx with URD and meter changes... they perfer to run new conduit and I need a road crossing... to make a long story short, it would have been nice for them to pay for it.. :) sorry for forgetting people can't read my mind... :)
 
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stickboy1375 said:
sorry for forgetting people can't read my mind... :)
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Yeah, I havn't installed the Microsoft mind reading module service pack yet either. I answer questions on DIY sites a lot. That sure would help me.
 
I was a contractor for many years in Oklahoma. I've dug up sections of underground that gophers had chewed up in numerous places. I've found dead gopers with their teeth in the wire.

And I've found underground feeders with balls of "corrosion" the size of basketballs that you could hear sizzling in the ground (I assume they came from small nicks in the insulation that got water intrusion. They looked like volcanic rock). The customer had been paying for who knows how long to heat the ground.

I would dig up these problems and show them to the customer. I never failed to sell them on installing the wire in PVC.
 
I had the same thing at two different houses. Both times it was at the transformer. One of the houses had underground and the other was overhead. In my area the Utility takes care finding a problem in the feed from the transformer to the "point of attachment". I will usually call them and tell them what I found and wait at the house until they get there.
 
Try www.lashen.com/vendors/tempo/cable_locators.asp

They are almost identical to what I have used for several years. Tempo PE2003 & 501.
With practice you can find a fault without the cable locator, but having both simplifies things. I have used mine to find faults under concrete, in sheetrocked walls and, with luck, in PVC conduit. Faults in concrete are a major hassle. Yes, that happens. Neither will find open conductors that are not going to ground although the 501 may get you close. Locates over 1000 feet can be tricky but are doable.

These observations are on the equipment I have.

After finding and clearing the first fault, check for additional ones before splicing. Depending on the length of undergound, repairing more than one or two in different locations starts to be a waste of time.
 
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