Why you hire an electrician and not a plumber

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petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
Years ago was repairing a damaged sprinkler, there were 3 or 4, 3/4" PVC pipe grouped together & the damaged one was on the bottom so cut a couple of them out of the way, turned out that someone ran a 14/2 UF inside of one of them, nothing happened but to this day I get POed when seeing white PVC used UG for electrical, but on the other hand in the 1960's the sprinkler pipe used around here was gray......

what code is violated by running UF underground inside a piece of water pipe?
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
.. what is strange is the house I live in now the sprinkler system is in hard drawn copper which I have never seen before, one of the first things I did was to cross bond it to add to my GES, so now I have a whole yard of copper tied to my GES, its been in place since 1981 when this house was built.

Now that you put that information out, the copper thieves will did up your sprinkler system in middle of night.:D


I was looking at the photo again and noticed the installer did use one "sweep" for the last elbow right before the light, what you suppose the reasoning for that may be?
 

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Now that you put that information out, the copper thieves will did up your sprinkler system in middle of night.:D


I was looking at the photo again and noticed the installer did use one "sweep" for the last elbow right before the light, what you suppose the reasoning for that may be?
Probably a hodge-podge of materials he had laying around in the shop. Just a guess.
 

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
Using white PVC plumbing pipe is unsafe! What happens when the landscaper cuts into a 1 inch ?white? PVC pipe that has 480 volt site lighting circuits, that he believes is the sprinkler water pipe.

Just my 2 cents.

Darwin award nominee. Seriously, a second or three of reflection should serve to trigger anyone's "spidey sense".

"Let's see, PVC pipe right next to the pole base and not a sprinkler head anywhere around. I wonder..."
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Darwin award nominee. Seriously, a second or three of reflection should serve to trigger anyone's "spidey sense".

"Let's see, PVC pipe right next to the pole base and not a sprinkler head anywhere around. I wonder..."

Not to mention if it is line voltage in the pipe hopefully it is not buried at depths the landscaper would typically run into, but now we are kind of getting back to whether or not the installer was qualified again.
 

norcal

Senior Member
what code is violated by running UF underground inside a piece of water pipe?

How is someone to even know it's there when the pipe w/ it in inside, is grouped w/ the sprinkler lines & they are all the same color? BTW, they were about 6" below grade.
 

Rampage_Rick

Senior Member
I was looking at the photo again and noticed the installer did use one "sweep" for the last elbow right before the light, what you suppose the reasoning for that may be?
I was looking at the installation, and with the materials provided you could install it in a more workable manner (and less wire)

From the motion light, a plumbing 90? to bring the pipe tight under the soffit, then another plumbing 90? to run the pipe vertically down the wall. The junction box should be below the light, just about touching what looks like an exhaust vent. The 90? sweep goes where the junction box is shown.

I've now eliminated that horrendous 180? and at least 6'-8' of pipe. I still can't figure out why they didn't just poke the 90? into the top of the junction box instead using two 90?s


The curved PVC on the right side of the second photo is for another day...
 

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I've now eliminated that horrendous 180? and at least 6'-8' of pipe. I still can't figure out why they didn't just poke the 90? into the top of the junction box instead using two 90?s The curved PVC on the right side of the second photo is for another day...
I wish I could tell you. No one wants to man up to the installation.
 

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
For the record it's considered a 4th degree felony with a $1K fine - 1st offense. Repeated offenses may result in prison time (not sure how much - depends on the judge).
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
A now defunct client had an electrical shop that was quite proud of the tool they had made. It was a pair of Vise Grips with two angle irons welded to it. They used them to make wires with square corners. Every one in the shop had one. Every wire that went around a corner in a wire duct had a square corner. Where the corner was on the wire the red insulation would turn whie-ish from the stress of being forced into the square shape.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
A now defunct client had an electrical shop that was quite proud of the tool they had made. It was a pair of Vise Grips with two angle irons welded to it. They used them to make wires with square corners. Every one in the shop had one. Every wire that went around a corner in a wire duct had a square corner. Where the corner was on the wire the red insulation would turn whie-ish from the stress of being forced into the square shape.
If they would have just rounded the corner to the right radius it would have been just fine. - probably don't need the force capable of being produced by a Vise - Grip pliers clamped onto the conductor though.
 

jim dungar

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Wisconsin
Occupation
PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Every wire that went around a corner in a wire duct had a square corner. Where the corner was on the wire the red insulation would turn whie-ish from the stress of being forced into the square shape.
There is no minimum bending radius for single conductors <600V, as long as the insulation is not damaged.
The insulation 'turning white' does appear to be an issue, the tool was probably gripping the conductor and then 'stretching' it into a 90? bend.
 
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