Well we found the trouble. Some animal most likely a gopher decided to burrow under the concrete cattle yard. At about 100 feet from any edge they decided to chew through the 4 inch PCV conduit. Well they did pretty good until they chewed the insulation off one hot leg and the ground wire. Hot cooked animal!!!! We got the old wire pulled out pretty easy and then we found the shorted area. there was not much water if any in the conduit. A local electrical fellow had a camera that had a long enough lead to pull through the conduit. We could see the hole in the side of the conduit about 400 feet from one end.
So now what???? we could have jack hammered the concrete out and repaired the conduit. This would have fixed the current issue but we might have another animal decide to try it out again. We rerouted the electric run. We used about 200 feet on one end of the old conduit where it goes under the drive ways and about 100 feet on the other end where it goes to the silos. The balance of the conduit is now above ground. We tucked it under the edge of the feed bunks and ran the length of the cattle yards that way. We put splice boxes at each end and on in the middle. Doing it this way allowed us to recover the majority of the current wire. Plus the system now will be easier to repair in the future.
One thing I forgot to mention is this is a TOTAL of 400 amps. It is two 200 amp services in tandem. So there is six wires in the conduit. It is tight.
The additional 750 feet of wire cost more than the entire wire cost eight years ago. I like how we have not had any inflation.
So now what???? we could have jack hammered the concrete out and repaired the conduit. This would have fixed the current issue but we might have another animal decide to try it out again. We rerouted the electric run. We used about 200 feet on one end of the old conduit where it goes under the drive ways and about 100 feet on the other end where it goes to the silos. The balance of the conduit is now above ground. We tucked it under the edge of the feed bunks and ran the length of the cattle yards that way. We put splice boxes at each end and on in the middle. Doing it this way allowed us to recover the majority of the current wire. Plus the system now will be easier to repair in the future.
One thing I forgot to mention is this is a TOTAL of 400 amps. It is two 200 amp services in tandem. So there is six wires in the conduit. It is tight.
The additional 750 feet of wire cost more than the entire wire cost eight years ago. I like how we have not had any inflation.
Glad you got it all fixed that easy.
