New pole barn help needed

Buildings I line the walls with chip board and blow in insulation. I'm just the opposite of one of the other posts, I don't bury it until I need it in case I want it somewhere else late. In fact I've got 5000' of 1" orangeburg on top of the ground, just can't use it if I let it freeze, until some bright sunlight heats it up.

The galvanized steel pipe also will function as a great ground, eliminating the ground wire and or additional rods. The only reasons I can see for not using the galvanized pipe are cost, the need to deal with threaded joints and the possibility of reaction with your water and the metal. I would suggest asking local people who have been in the area a long time if they have had any trouble with metal pipe. They will know, as that was all that was available for a long time.

I also always use plastic conduit to run electrical between buildings. I usually use 1.5", as it is easier to pull wires through and it allows changing wires or adding wires without digging up the installation. The conduit does not cost much and I think is a good long term investment.

I run the water line and electrical conduit next to eachother in the same ditch and usually throw some direct burial phone line alongside them in the same ditch, in case I want to add a phone later. The same could be done with coaxial cable for Cable or Satellite TV service, if you think you ever might want that in your shop.

Since digging the ditch is the hardest and potentially the most expensive part of doing this kind of installation on my property, I try to do things in such a way that I will hopefully never have to dig them up again.

If corrosion of your buried pipe is a concern, you can put roofing tar on the exposed pipe threads.

Local people will know about such problems, although they can be very localized. My water is extremely different than the water at the farmhouse I grew up in, and they are less than half a mile apart. I wish I had their water!

Water:

I have both hard and soft water at my building; soft water inside, hard outside. I drilled two holes in my basement wall (below the frost line) and ran 3/4" copper pipe through them. The pipes are cemented in place with waterproof ("hydraulic") cement and covered on the outside with roofing cement. The pipes are connected to my house plumbing via shutoff valves.

The pipes running from the house to the building are 1" PVC, buried 4 feet deep. At the building I have two frostproof yard hydrants. If you're not familiar with these, ask your plumbing supply house. Two good brands are Woodford and Anyflow. Yard hydrants come in different "bury depths", with 4' being typical; a four foot bury depth hydrant is about eight feet long. The hydrant has to be set in gravel so that it can drain. The hydrant drain is threaded for 1/8" pipe, I recommend that you connect a short piece of pipe or tubing to the drain to keep gravel out.

Electric:

I went with 100 amp service. The building needs its own service disconnect circuit breaker at the meter. I used #2 "USE" (underground service) cable, which is approved for direct burial. To comply with code, four wires were required: two hot, one neutral, one ground. The wires are buried 2 feet deep. At both ends, I ran the cables through 1-1/4" PVC conduit to a depth of 18". At the building, the conduit is inside the building, so I didn't have to go through the wall (The service wires are buried under the wall.) I have a 100 amp breaker panel in the building.

A separate ground was required at the building. I originally grounded just to my yard hydrants, but the inspector required that I add two ground rods. I also had to replace the pipe clamps at the hydrants with clamps that were approved for direct burial.

It probably sounds expensive to run a separate service rather than a subpanel, but you won't regret it if you're going to use any power tools in your outbuilding.

But, you got me curious - you needed 4 wires, PLUS ground stakes? I always thought it was an either/or thing, not both. Could you shed any light on that?

--->Paul

In my case, NEC 250.32 D applies, not 250.32 B.

NEC 250.32 D says that if the service disconnect is in a different building, you must run separate neutral and ground conductors, and you must have ground rods at the building being serviced.

I agree, it seems pretty redundant, but there must be a reason for it.