Make Sure That You Are Taking The Right Steps To Bury Electrical Cable

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Reducing My Family's Carbon Footprint

One day last summer, I got a letter in the mail that blew me away. It was a bill from my power company, and I couldn't believe how much power it said that we had used. I didn't know what to do, but I knew that we had to do something. That day, we made the decision as a family to reduce our carbon footprint by using less power. We started turning off the television when it wasn't in use, switching off lights, and eliminating extra plugged in appliances. It seemed like a big sacrifice at first, but after awhile we started to realize that it was going to make things a lot better. Check out this blog for ideas on how you can use energy more effectively.

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Make Sure That You Are Taking The Right Steps To Bury Electrical Cable

9 August 2016
 Categories: , Blog


If you are building a shed that you are going to turn into a studio or a workshop, you are going to want to have power out there. That way you can have your lights and power any of your tools. If you want to have power, there are options. One is that you can have a cable run overhead from your house's meter to the building, or you can bury the cable underground. There are a lot of good reasons for you to bury it. One is that you don't have to worry about branches bringing down the wires. If you decide that you want to bury your electrical cable, there are some things that you are going to need to do before you finish the job. 

Check Building Codes

Before you can bury your power line, you need to know how far down it will need to be buried. If you are in a cold location, you will likely have to bury it below the frost line. How far down that is depends on where you live. If you aren't sure how far down your frost line is, a local building inspector should be able to tell you. 

Get the Right Cable/Conduit

When you are looking for the right cable to bury, you want to make sure that you get UF cable. UF stands for underground feeder, which is cable that is specifically designed to be used for underground purposes. When you are looking for cable, you should also look for a conduit. Conduit is basically a sleeve for the cable to run through. It helps to protect the electrical cable from things like soil moisture. There are different kinds of conduit you can use, as well as different kinds of connectors to use at the ends of the conduit when you need to connect it to other pieces of conduit or breaker boxes. You can get metal or PVC conduit, but when it comes to connectors, you probably want to get something that is rubber and rated to be used with electrical systems. That's because rubber can help ground an electrical system if something happens. The rubber can also make it harder for water to get into any openings. 

If you are going to build a shed for a workshop or studio, you want to make sure that you have power to your shed. You can bury an electrical cable to accomplish that if you want.