OT Buried conduit

Heyseed · Nov 30, 2016

I buried a one inch conduit to carry my dish cable. It is 120 feet long and the plan was to seal both ends after the cable was in place. But it has rained for two days and I'm sure there is some water in there. Both ends have a 90 facing the sky. I figure I can blow out the water, but was thinking it may be a good idea to drill dome small drain holes in the bottom of the tube at the down hill end. I can dig up a few feet pretty easily. I only put this about a foot below the surface and our frost line is 24 inches around here. Any thoughts? Would that be overkill?

markct · Nov 30, 2016

Any wire going in underground conduits has to be rated for wet locations anyhow so blow it out before it freezes and you will be fine

Janicholson · Nov 30, 2016

Run a hair dryer in it for a while. Then cover the ends with a roof like cover that allows them to breathe. A week later seal them up. Putting a hole in the conduit will allow it to suck moisture in as it cools. Jim

Greg K · Nov 30, 2016

Blow out what you can. Then take a plastic grocery bag and tie a string to the end of it to the handles. Next take a shop vac and suck that bag through with the string. Then tie a rag to the string and pull that through the conduit and that should pull out any water that is left. However there is a good chance there will be condensation in that conduit over the years so it will not stay dry.

dr sportster · Nov 30, 2016

Only thought drilling a hole in pipe some type code violation. I don't have an article offhand but I'm sure I could find one about the integrity of the pipe and no holes. All underground electrical pipes get water in them.

jeffcat · Nov 30, 2016

Doesn't the phone lines outfit run dry nitrogen in the lines at a slight pressure? Every now and then you see a set of tanks chained to a phone pole.

Heyseed · Nov 30, 2016

thanks for the quick responses, so just dry it out run the cable and seal it up. That was my first thought. Moisture won't hurt this cable, I was just thinking about freezing cracking the tube. I used schedule 40 and it would take a lot of water and a serious freeze to do that but dealing with it now would be easier than down the road.

Heyseed · Nov 30, 2016

no code here, this is a coaxial cable on my land, heck the dish guys who ran it just left it on the surface.

dr sportster · Nov 30, 2016

Oh yes if you own the land you don't have to follow any code . The heck with burning down the neighbors house.

Heyseed · Nov 30, 2016

Sporty did you miss the part about it being a coaxial cable?

donjr · Nov 30, 2016

Those tanks supply about 5-10# of pressure to the cable to blow out any moisture if there are some small pinholes and most often on a pulp insulated cable. Moisture in a pulp cable will put it out of service very quickly.

dr sportster · Nov 30, 2016

Still in the code books . I hope your not taking me too seriously. Just noting code still applies.

docmirror · Nov 30, 2016

Pretty much all dish coax cable for outdoor use is pretty robust. You can do pretty much anything you want to it, and as long as the outer cladding is not cracked or penetrated, it'll live there a long, long time. Of course, not all coax cables are equal, but most dish providers use good quality stuff because the cost of going out and fixing cable faults quickly exceeds the cost of the decent materials to start with.

If you can read all the printing somewhere along the cable I can decode what you've got there but more than likely it'll be fine in your conduit unless there's a complete freeze and it's full of water. That could compress or crack the outer shell and cause damage.

D beatty · Nov 30, 2016

Blow the water out of conduit and run cable. The cable they gave you is to be run under ground without a conduit. So how can a little moisture hurt it?

BobReeves · Nov 30, 2016

Like dr sportster said I have never seen an underground conduit that didn't have water in it and I have pulled and replaced allot of underground cable. I have a 2 inch 250 foot run from the house to my shop that contains video, Cat-5 and phone lines and am sure it is flooded. Been there for about 12 years and so far everything is still working.

RJKeith · Nov 30, 2016

Most THWN XHHW-2 insulated copper wire and any CATV or Phone/Computer wire with an outer PVC jacket does pretty well even if the conduit fills with water. You can blow it out with air the best you can then pull a rag through it if you want, but you will probably good even if the conduit has some water in it. Digging part of the conduit up to drill drainage holes seems like a lot of work for a worse idea to me.

Pair-a-dice farm · Nov 30, 2016

Like everyone said, I wouldn't worry about a little moisture as long as it can breath out the ends. Around here none of the phone, internet or dish cables are run in conduit, only electric wire. I've never heard of anyone getting electrocuted by a dish cable. However there are starting to be a lot of weird thinking folks moving in so there may be something going on :lol:

D beatty · Nov 30, 2016

Did you read you code book right. There are two types of coaxial cable. One is direct bury and requires no conduit and the other does have to be run in conduit.

dr sportster · Dec 1, 2016

The subject was drilling holes in pipe.

buickanddeere · Dec 1, 2016

No matter how you seal it the conduit will still fill with water. Having some drainage stone at the lowest point and a "T" with a drain hole is the only way to keep it damp instead of wet.

ss55 · Dec 1, 2016

Technology changes fast enough that you will probably need to replace the dish and the wires before the wires go bad. The conduit should make installing new wires much easier. I would not drill any drain holes into the conduit, dirt and chips will get inside making it harder to replace the wires.

OT Buried conduit

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