Nice setup Keep in mind if you want plugs and lights always run 6-3 with ground instead of 6-2 Always keep your ground and neutral separate when coming off the main panel.
Thank you Pete - lots of people reading their "books" lamenting the power drop - you did it and MEASURED it. No problem. Once again we see the value of experience. They told me the same thing when I picked up the wire, my neighbor told me the same thing when he saw me laying it and my friend the electrician told me the same thing when I asked him. I did it and measured it - can't really even see the difference on several readings both under load and not. 230 feet of 6 gauge/3 wire with ground for 50 amp RV connection.
Nice home brew setup. When I first saw your implement I thought he is going to rip that sweep right off... and then that was the first thing you fixed. Nice job.
Tex Teacher He's not cutting corners. That grey cable he's suing is UF cable...Underground Feeder. It's designed and intended for direct burial. Besides being harder to strip than regular old "romex" it's also a lot more expensive. He did it right.
Being on a big tractor like that it just took off cutting through their like butter on that first pass! I wasn't expecting it to go that smoothly. Usually it's a much smaller tractor that I see them used on and they still do fine, but it is much slower and jerks and flexes and all that good stuff. This tractor clearly gave no fornications!
Good info. I need to do something similar to run about 1000' of 1-inch poly pipe for water. Because the poly is about 1.33-inch OD, I'll need a bigger Bowden tube (for lack of a better term) like possibly 2-inch to feed it and therefore that tube will be working to widen the trench as I go. I'll definitely need to increase my welding prowess to be sure it holds together. Hopefully my HF 125 flux core welder is up to the task. Thanks for the vid.
I used this same method to bury a power and ethernet cable to a friends garage from his house. I have a 25 horse tractor so making an initial pass to break up roots and move underground rocks helped big time. You can also buy a 24" subsoiler in cat 1 from Frontier (JD dealership can get them). We used a piece of metal conduit run across the ROPS bar to hold our spools and once the cables grabed after a few feet the whole setup will auto feed as you move along.
Same here, about 2005 I made the same rig and laid down 3/4 in black poly drip irregation hanging the spool off my rops. wth a JD 4400 compact Hydro all still working today !
Thanks for the video. Power seems so easy in the states - I mean Wow, in Australia we have to trench power to 60cm minimum depth and any electrical wire buried in ground must be inside in ground rated conduit all the way. These usually come in 6 metre lengths (18ft) which must be glued at every join. Before connection to power must be signed off by a surveyor or electrician - I really wanted to run power to my dam pump, would costs me thousands in wire and conduit alone. I can’t say our laws even help with electrocutions which we still have a lot of despite all the regulations
Wow, like a hot knife through butter. pretty cool. I might of considered relocating that other electrical run you found into that same trench along the house since it only appears to be a few inches below the soil. nice job. I'll be checking into that silicon tape you mentioned.
Never watched a full video but this one I did. Very good on your work, reminds of me. I sweat a lot in south Texas 100s degree F. I don't wear a shirt bare skin is better! Thanks 😊
That worked great! Good job! I used mine for a couple of 4" corrugated drain jobs. Couple of passes then bolted on a 12" sweep to clean out. Sure beats hand digging! Throw your spool of wire on your ROPS then you wont have to pay the laborer!!
I like your idea. But coming from 35 years of commercial/industrial electrician I would definitely use at the least a PVC conduit and maintain a minimum of 18 to 24 inches depth.
When moles, voles, and roots destroy the cable in an unknown amount of time, true. I need to quit worrying about code so I can make money like all the septic, irrigation, moonlighters, and subpar contractors who throw code out the window! Did you see that septic wiring 'bend'? But, I make $$$ fixing all those fools shoddy installs. Edit...good video and you got it done!
@@heynow7363 i deal with direct buried powerlines all the time for work. I see #2 copper UG 240V services with BARE neutrals direct buried from the 1950s still working. It'll work.
I won’t normally watch a 22 minute video but I watched this one all the way to the end. I think I’m going to run electricity to my barn with my subsoiler.
Pete B. Must be nice to live someplace where you can get away with running power lines only 1-2 feet under the surface, around here the code calls for a minimum of four. Also to have a wife that is willing to do all the work of feeding the cables while you just relax on the tractor and drive? C'mon, I understand that it was hot while you were doing this, but did you ever consider letting her just putz along on the tractor while you did the actual work?
I don’t have a tractor yet but I have a skid steer. So I built a universal plate attachment with a Reese hitch so I can move trailers, use a land scrape rake, I’ll try to utilize that to attach a sub-soiler tooth. I saw several that drag backwards. I want to drive forward because I can’t see very well behind the skid steer.
I'm thinking that the surprise wire you found @ 7:15 is actually the air hose running from the air pump under the green cover out to the bubbler in your septic tank. I had a similar setup.
Hang the spool of wire above this rig. Or You can also connect a piece of chain with a steel ball larger then the conduit that you're burying. That will open a hole thru the ground so you can pull in your length of conduit that is glued together. Sprinkler companies use it that way.
I built one very similar, I put an edge on a piece of steel and welded it to the opposite side of the conduit. The blade cuts the sod and keeps it from bunching up and makes a cleaner cut. After I run the wire I just drive over the line I cut and I'm done.
Keyboard warriors drive me crazy. The project worked. The line is buried. What's the problem? Are you gonna go out and there and dig the line up? No. Is it yours to worry about? No. Something needs to be said to you guys pointing out what YOU deem as a flaw in someone's work: the content of the video is already done. We are all seeing these videos AFTER the work is performed. So shut up, and learn a new idea or keep scrolling to a channel that corresponds to your MIT education....that is all. Carry on.
Good job. Piece of cake after the trees. Maybe suggest doing a short follow-up video how it turned out and the true voltage at the well house reading. We have friends with a well that's 600+' from their house. No well house, just an access hole. The power and water line run parallel all the way back to the house. The rest of the equipment is inside the house. Very trouble free the 25+ years they have lived there. Lucky
Bob Jeselnik Thank you, I might do a follow-up on the voltage. I've used three different voltage calculators on line and they all show a three volt drop using 6 awg wire at 475 ft. But we'll see.
Bob Jeselnik NEC code allows a 5% drop before you need to increase wire size. There are calculators online that can figure the voltage drop. On 120 volts 5% figures out as 6 volts prior to next size wire needed. Again there are calculators to help you figure out what wire size you need to be within these specs.
Thanks for the video, the subsoiler made it look so simple,and it got it down to the right depth, that saved a whole lot of sweat, the soil at your house looks great ,where I live we have nothing but shale and rocks, so not quite so easy, but still thanks on showing us you experience
I was thinking same thing, very well thought out, one thing I'm going to do is add 2" wide stock 1/4" thick x 2' long, run those two pieces up from each side to hold 1000' spools of underground dog cable, have 3 of them to install all connected together. Gives Charlie a pretty big area to rome in. Not sure if I should do this application or just rent a cable trencher/burier gas powered unit, I don't think my tractor can fit in all the areas the cable has to be buried.
Pete: An alternative to the plastic conduit you could use EMT ( electrical metal tubing ) then you could weld it to the angle iron. Then the whole assembly could be welded a little stronger than the plastic and hose clamps. Bert
Welding EMT is unlikely to be stronger than clamping it to something rigid. It's very thin and not easily welded. It's also galvanized so shouldn't be welded without considerable prep work and PPE.
I would've been inclined to use that to lay a poly pipe as a conduit, and then pulled the wire through the conduit, but I guess when you can lay the wire that easily, if it ever breaks, you can just run a new one easily too.
You could have clamped a pipe across the ROPS Bars and put a wire reel on the pipe (prior to clamping it), that way it would unwind itself and feed down into the conduit. I have a similar task to run a dual 6 awg w/neutral 6 awg about 280' but I have lots of rocks, roots etc. I might have to use a trencher first then run the wire.
I always enjoy your videos, great info as always. I've been debating doing something like this for pulling 1.5" or 2" HDPE water line, but after seeing this in action I'm not sure if it would be too big to fit behind the subsoiler and end up putting too much strain on the pipe. I need to eventually put some stock tanks out for cattle and would be doing 1,500'+ runs.
I think you can do this with 1.5" HDPE water line. What you need to do is also put a angle iron on the front side where it's cutting the ground sharp edge out towards the tractor and you could weld the angle iron to the tabs. Use angle iron big enough to protect what ever size tube you'll be using to feed the water line in to the ground.
Use a middle buster plow instead of a subsoiler which will open up a wider area and you should be fine even with a bigger water line. I have used a middle buster to make a trench for 4” drain lines.
I also hung a large empty spool on the ROPS and just let the tubing trail behind in the grass for the 1000' ft rolls once you have enough in the ground it acts like a nice radius to prevent cinking ...
Man, you posted this video 5 years but I'm hopeful you still get messages still today. I'm putting my daughters house about 250 feet from well house. How is your water pressure over that distance from pressure tank to house? I want to keep both pressure tanks in same pump house for maintenance reasons but don't want to sacrifice pressure. Thanks
@@petebeasttexashomesteading Fantastic, I was hoping you would say that. First time I've set up a two house system off one well pump. I've worked on a 27 home water system but that was massive and too Many years ago. Biggest problem now is finding an inexpensive certified perk tester in my area. Thanks for the help.
@@richarsbritt4987 I would put a 119 gallon pressure tank in your well house so your pump is not constantly cycling on and off because two houses are now drawing from one pump.
@@petebeasttexashomesteading Oh I got ya beat hands down on that 😅, I'm installing an 1,100 gallon holding tank with a 300 gallon float switch. This will keep tank between 1,100 down to 800. Each house will have their own smaller submersible pump and tank giving each house their own pressure. Now in the event the well pump goes out and each house keeps using, there will be an emergency power cut off switch that kicks in at 300 gallons shutting off both houses. Not sure why I'm looking forward to this project but I am a LITTLE concerned with how excited I am 😆. I plan on posting pictures of everything when done.
Another idea i have seen on engineer775 is to ad a handpump to your well that you can use to get the pressure up to however high you want it. That way you have water at your house, even if you are for wathever reason, are not able to use a generator or other power source. (think of emp, solar flare, mechanical problem with your generator, or out of fuel)
I've looked in to those hand pumps, but I don't think I have enough room in my casing to have both hand pump and the regular line together. Plus my well house is too far from the house and I would have to drill another well closer to the house for it to be more convenient to use.....But I'll keep looking thanks.
4 foot ?? 1200 mm deep for power?? Dunno what state your in but in queensland ..power in orange conduit 600 mm ( 2 ft) deep ...no shallower and cable danger tape in trench to a depth of 300mm not shallower ..but thats domestic....smarter if you back fill with sand ..just to brind attention to when your excavating later on down the track
@@petebeasttexashomesteading If you glued your all the conduit together with the wire already inside the conduit and glued it to the piece that is attached to the ripper and pull it through the ditch as your going. Why would it not work?
@@w0lf1969 Yes that would work too. But the wire I pulled is rated for direct burial and it's much less work and cost less doing it like I did in the video.
A cycle stop valve will prevent the pump from cycling on and off when the water is running continuously, by keeping the pressure a bit lower than the pump cut off pressure. Reducing the number of on/off cycles saves wear on the pump, not the pressure tank.
Maybe it's a difference in soil/sod but the issue I always have with my subsoiler is it accumulates sod on the leading edge of the vertical shank, which makes more of a mess than anything...rips up in huge chunks... Seems like I need to put an edge on that face
How many HP is your tractor? I wonder if a compact tractor would have enough power to pull the subsoiler. Also, I'm curious why no plastic conduit was used.
My tractor is 55hp and it around 7000lbs. And it didn't even phase the tractor. A compact might be too light and just spin it's tires but I'm not sure. The wire I buried is a direct burial wire and doesn't need PVC conduit which makes it much easier and way less work than digging a trench and fishing the wire through the conduit.
Just did this with the back blade on my tractor. It sucked. This would have been better.. . I went deep enough to tip the tractor on its side! Not bad as it was in the hole... drove it out .... I did run a string and orange ground paint because I wanted to be sure I used as little wire as possible...
Great job Pete! I was wandering, I live in east Texas and the frost line is 6 inches deep. If I were to use a subsoiler and come back with a middle buster, do you think I could lay some water line?
You should have made a metal sweep and had a spool holder built on to that attachment or you could feed electrical wire through the suites as you plow lay The wire it would unroll from the spool
Electrical cable underground without PVC is going to be a wakeup call not too far in the distance future. Folks out here in the country often cut corners and that's ok sometimes.
He's not cutting corners. That grey cable he's suing is UF cable...Underground Feeder. It's designed and intended for direct burial. Besides being harder to strip than regular old "romex" it's also a lot more expensive. He did it right.
What I noticed was your PVC conduit installation on the side of your house is missing the required expansion fitting on your horizontal run. PVC will expand and contract from winter to summer temperatures. One 10 ft. run of PVC can expand and contract 3/8th of an inch over a years time. Having the correct straps and expansion joints is required by NEC section 347. I could not tell from your video, but any electrical installation between grade and 8 ft above grade., exposed to physical damage, is required to be in schedule 80 (rigid) PVC for protection. As it looked like you were coming off your main panel, a maximum 5% voltage drop is allowed to your end device. If your voltage at your panel reads 240 volts, at the pump house you should read no less than 228 volts. A 2 HP pump has a full load current of 12 amps. A #6 awg conductor has an area of 26,240 circular mills. The resistance (K) of copper conductors is 12.9 ohms. To find the wire size needed for your the formula is CM = 2 x 475 (distance) x 12.9 x 12 / 12 (VD) = 12,225 CM or a size #8 AWG. As I teach my apprentices, a home owner may do their own electrical work, but a clause in every home owners insurance policy states that all electrical work must be done to National Electrical Code standards or the policy does not have to be paid in case of electrical fire.
It sounds like you might have some book smarts but you made one major mistake in your calculation. You left out the depth of the well in your calculation. Where I live it is not uncommon to have wells over 500 ft with submersible pumps. You have to add the depth of the pump to the distance. So instead of 475 ft it really should have been 475 plus the depth of the well. If the well is 500 ft deep he should have run #4 AWG.
Good thing for all homeowners that inspectors, firemen, insurance investigators, and most electricians are pretty much not doing a job 100 percent. NO HOUSE has ever been wired fully to code I'll guarantee. Not even your company, lol. There is ALWAYS a strap or staple or something wrong that is out of code. You did teach me something about those expansion joints! Thanks.
I want to build me one of those but I wonder if the smaller tractors will pull one of those. I mean yours is 50 hp and it pulls it like its not even back there. I'm not sure a smaller tractor like 30hp and below would be able to do that. I know your mahindra is a lot heavier than my kubota. at any rate I loved the video and that tractor is really nice!
Dave, my old Kubota BX-24 has no problem pulling my King Kutter subsoiler, even with its much wider middle buster plow blade I use to dig up potatoes. Pete, I appreciate your taking the time to show what you did. I have a 30' flagpole about 300' from my house/barn breaker box and was trying to avoid all the trenching/digging required to lay in the code-required 8-3 wire for a 20-amp circuit to feed a 50-75 watt spotlight and probably some low voltage driveway lighting and holiday lighting later. I'll be building a similar attachment for my subsoiler this spring, before the ground gets brick-hard.
I can tell you that a 'friend' told me if you are full speed on a FM road in a 53 hp tractor and accidentally drop the middle buster it will twist while finding the road bed...quickly...in about 2 feet distance from engagement!
Pete B. Very cool you cant be to prepared i learned that the hard way in 2009 are power was out for 4 weeks. Now i try to keep at least 100 gallons of red diesel at all times.
Nice setup
Keep in mind if you want plugs and lights always run 6-3 with ground instead of 6-2
Always keep your ground and neutral separate when coming off the main panel.
Driving both sides and not the middle is EXACTLY right pinches shut. Good job
Thank you Pete - lots of people reading their "books" lamenting the power drop - you did it and MEASURED it. No problem. Once again we see the value of experience. They told me the same thing when I picked up the wire, my neighbor told me the same thing when he saw me laying it and my friend the electrician told me the same thing when I asked him. I did it and measured it - can't really even see the difference on several readings both under load and not. 230 feet of 6 gauge/3 wire with ground for 50 amp RV connection.
Thank you👍
Never need to apologize for sweating ... only demonstrate that you are working hard
Nice setup. We use one on the farm a lot to pull water lines and electrical lines. Have a good one
Thank you 👍
Smart idea. Saves a lot of digging and mess.
Thanks
Nicely done !! Our electrical code requires a "Buried Electrical Line Caution Tape" buried on top of the cable
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Nice home brew setup. When I first saw your implement I thought he is going to rip that sweep right off... and then that was the first thing you fixed. Nice job.
John Walsh Thank you, I really appreciate that. 😊
You are so lucky! I have hardpan around my place and the subsoiler doesn't go deep. But I learned a lot from you. Thanks!
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Tex Teacher He's not cutting corners. That grey cable he's suing is UF cable...Underground Feeder. It's designed and intended for direct burial. Besides being harder to strip than regular old "romex" it's also a lot more expensive. He did it right.
Good job, great video
Brilliant. Thank you for posting.
Being on a big tractor like that it just took off cutting through their like butter on that first pass! I wasn't expecting it to go that smoothly. Usually it's a much smaller tractor that I see them used on and they still do fine, but it is much slower and jerks and flexes and all that good stuff. This tractor clearly gave no fornications!
Good info. I need to do something similar to run about 1000' of 1-inch poly pipe for water. Because the poly is about 1.33-inch OD, I'll need a bigger Bowden tube (for lack of a better term) like possibly 2-inch to feed it and therefore that tube will be working to widen the trench as I go. I'll definitely need to increase my welding prowess to be sure it holds together. Hopefully my HF 125 flux core welder is up to the task. Thanks for the vid.
I used this same method to bury a power and ethernet cable to a friends garage from his house. I have a 25 horse tractor so making an initial pass to break up roots and move underground rocks helped big time. You can also buy a 24" subsoiler in cat 1 from Frontier (JD dealership can get them). We used a piece of metal conduit run across the ROPS bar to hold our spools and once the cables grabed after a few feet the whole setup will auto feed as you move along.
Same here, about 2005 I made the same rig and laid down 3/4 in black poly drip irregation hanging the spool off my rops. wth a JD 4400 compact Hydro all still working today !
two 1000' runs down each side of my drive
Really enjoy watching your videos, entertaining and educational. Thanks.
Glad you like them! thank you 👍
How deep did you go down
Did you use copper or aluminum wire
Thanks for the video. Power seems so easy in the states - I mean Wow, in Australia we have to trench power to 60cm minimum depth and any electrical wire buried in ground must be inside in ground rated conduit all the way. These usually come in 6 metre lengths (18ft) which must be glued at every join. Before connection to power must be signed off by a surveyor or electrician - I really wanted to run power to my dam pump, would costs me thousands in wire and conduit alone. I can’t say our laws even help with electrocutions which we still have a lot of despite all the regulations
It is supposed to be buried 60cm (24 inches) in the US. But we don't have that glue nonsense.
Wow, like a hot knife through butter. pretty cool. I might of considered relocating that other electrical run you found into that same trench along the house since it only appears to be a few inches below the soil. nice job. I'll be checking into that silicon tape you mentioned.
Never watched a full video but this one I did. Very good on your work, reminds of me. I sweat a lot in south Texas 100s degree F. I don't wear a shirt bare skin is better! Thanks 😊
About 20 inches deep looks good 👍 great job
Thank you
That worked great! Good job! I used mine for a couple of 4" corrugated drain jobs. Couple of passes then bolted on a 12" sweep to clean out. Sure beats hand digging! Throw your spool of wire on your ROPS then you wont have to pay the laborer!!
Yes it does beat digging by hand or renting a ditch witch. 👍
Great how to video. I was checking out some of your other videos and I will be using them a lot. Thanks for taking the time to share.
Awesome thank you
good video and good Info we got to bury 200 feet of Underground wire for a well pump soon, this will help!!
Thank you
Great job helper did great job too
I like your idea. But coming from 35 years of commercial/industrial electrician I would definitely use at the least a PVC conduit and maintain a minimum of 18 to 24 inches depth.
When moles, voles, and roots destroy the cable in an unknown amount of time, true. I need to quit worrying about code so I can make money like all the septic, irrigation, moonlighters, and subpar contractors who throw code out the window! Did you see that septic wiring 'bend'?
But, I make $$$ fixing all those fools shoddy installs.
Edit...good video and you got it done!
@@heynow7363 i deal with direct buried powerlines all the time for work. I see #2 copper UG 240V services with BARE neutrals direct buried from the 1950s still working. It'll work.
I won’t normally watch a 22 minute video but I watched this one all the way to the end. I think I’m going to run electricity to my barn with my subsoiler.
Awesome, I'm glad the video helped you out.
Pete B.
Must be nice to live someplace where you can get away with running power lines only 1-2 feet under the surface, around here the code calls for a minimum of four.
Also to have a wife that is willing to do all the work of feeding the cables while you just relax on the tractor and drive? C'mon, I understand that it was hot while you were doing this, but did you ever consider letting her just putz along on the tractor while you did the actual work?
One could mount a spool holder on there. 👍
Another great video Pete. And by the way...you are allowed to sweat a bit in that humid heat, and if need be, smell a bit too. It's all good.
ufomr Thanks, it's so hot and humid here in August. I was drinking ton of water and some sea salt added for electrolytes.
Hey bro Texes in August don’t worry about offending us by the sweat! Awesome job!
I don’t have a tractor yet but I have a skid steer. So I built a universal plate attachment with a Reese hitch so I can move trailers, use a land scrape rake, I’ll try to utilize that to attach a sub-soiler tooth. I saw several that drag backwards. I want to drive forward because I can’t see very well behind the skid steer.
Good job like the straps
I'm thinking that the surprise wire you found @ 7:15 is actually the air hose running from the air pump under the green cover out to the bubbler in your septic tank. I had a similar setup.
It was actually for the pump and high and low level switch wires, I'm just glad I didn't cut them.
Hang the spool of wire above this rig. Or You can also connect a piece of chain with a steel ball larger then the conduit that you're burying. That will open a hole thru the ground so you can pull in your length of conduit that is glued together. Sprinkler companies use it that way.
I built one very similar, I put an edge on a piece of steel and welded it to the opposite side of the conduit. The blade cuts the sod and keeps it from bunching up and makes a cleaner cut. After I run the wire I just drive over the line I cut and I'm done.
👍
Yep works great I just used a 1/2 Pex pipe and some clamps and ran a 3000ft fiber line a foot deep in under an hour
Awesome, that's the way to do it. 👍
Appreciate you sharing your ingenuity..don't you love it when a plan works out..haha..nice video..thank you
Thank you and yes I felt so good that it worked out.
Could add a curved piece of conduit on top to allow easier feeding of the power cable.
Keyboard warriors drive me crazy. The project worked. The line is buried. What's the problem? Are you gonna go out and there and dig the line up? No. Is it yours to worry about? No. Something needs to be said to you guys pointing out what YOU deem as a flaw in someone's work: the content of the video is already done. We are all seeing these videos AFTER the work is performed. So shut up, and learn a new idea or keep scrolling to a channel that corresponds to your MIT education....that is all. Carry on.
I've been checking out videos on this setup & so far I like your ideas of improvement best. Thanks for posting & stay safe.
Thank you my friend.
This is absolutely genius
I learned something today great video.
Great video. Very helpful. Thank you for sharing!
Nice! If only my ground was as soft as yours! I also have lots of quartz rock. Still love my subsoiler though.
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Good job. Piece of cake after the trees. Maybe suggest doing a short follow-up video how it turned out and the true voltage at the well house reading.
We have friends with a well that's 600+' from their house. No well house, just an access hole. The power and water line run parallel all the way back to the house. The rest of the equipment is inside the house. Very trouble free the 25+ years they have lived there. Lucky
Bob Jeselnik Thank you, I might do a follow-up on the voltage. I've used three different voltage calculators on line and they all show a three volt drop using 6 awg wire at 475 ft. But we'll see.
Bob Jeselnik NEC code allows a 5% drop before you need to increase wire size. There are calculators online that can figure the voltage drop. On 120 volts 5% figures out as 6 volts prior to next size wire needed. Again there are calculators to help you figure out what wire size you need to be within these specs.
Thanks for the video, the subsoiler made it look so simple,and it got it down to the right depth, that saved a whole lot of sweat, the soil at your house looks great ,where I live we have nothing but shale and rocks, so not quite so easy, but still thanks on showing us you experience
Thank you
I was thinking same thing, very well thought out, one thing I'm going to do is add 2" wide stock 1/4" thick x 2' long, run those two pieces up from each side to hold 1000' spools of underground dog cable, have 3 of them to install all connected together. Gives Charlie a pretty big area to rome in. Not sure if I should do this application or just rent a cable trencher/burier gas powered unit, I don't think my tractor can fit in all the areas the cable has to be buried.
👍
Pete: An alternative to the plastic conduit you could use EMT ( electrical metal tubing ) then you could weld it to the angle iron. Then the whole assembly could be welded a little stronger than the plastic and hose clamps. Bert
Thanks, I was going to use a EMT but I would of needed to buy a tube bender.
bert skelton hard ridge would be better than the emt which is very thin and soft as metal goes. You should be able to buy prebent elbows
You could go to a muffler shop and have them bend you a piece of pipe.
You can buy an EMT 90, that is what I used to build mine.
Welding EMT is unlikely to be stronger than clamping it to something rigid. It's very thin and not easily welded. It's also galvanized so shouldn't be welded without considerable prep work and PPE.
I would've been inclined to use that to lay a poly pipe as a conduit, and then pulled the wire through the conduit, but I guess when you can lay the wire that easily, if it ever breaks, you can just run a new one easily too.
You mean 11-12 inches? Good job.👍👍👍👍👍
Boy you don't sound like you're from Texas! Great video!
I'm not originally from Texas
That worked great!
I can see a subsoiler in my future for running water and power lines……:)
That's what's great about these subloilers is that they're not too expensive and you can save your self a lot of back breaking work.
You could have clamped a pipe across the ROPS Bars and put a wire reel on the pipe (prior to clamping it), that way it would unwind itself and feed down into the conduit. I have a similar task to run a dual 6 awg w/neutral 6 awg about 280' but I have lots of rocks, roots etc. I might have to use a trencher first then run the wire.
Excellent idea and video.
Thank you 👍
This is a great idea, but folks should check their local code. Code in most places for direct burial of electrical cable is 36" or 48" deep.
Cool... Now I just need to get a freaking tractor...
Nonnof Yobiznes use your car
I always enjoy your videos, great info as always. I've been debating doing something like this for pulling 1.5" or 2" HDPE water line, but after seeing this in action I'm not sure if it would be too big to fit behind the subsoiler and end up putting too much strain on the pipe. I need to eventually put some stock tanks out for cattle and would be doing 1,500'+ runs.
I think you can do this with 1.5" HDPE water line. What you need to do is also put a angle iron on the front side where it's cutting the ground sharp edge out towards the tractor and you could weld the angle iron to the tabs. Use angle iron big enough to protect what ever size tube you'll be using to feed the water line in to the ground.
Use a middle buster plow instead of a subsoiler which will open up a wider area and you should be fine even with a bigger water line. I have used a middle buster to make a trench for 4” drain lines.
While I only did 3/4 HDPE the conduit was 2" on the back and I pulled probably over 2500 ( 5000 counting the dog electric fence :) )
I also hung a large empty spool on the ROPS and just let the tubing trail behind in the grass for the 1000' ft rolls once you have enough in the ground it acts like a nice radius to prevent cinking ...
Man, you posted this video 5 years but I'm hopeful you still get messages still today. I'm putting my daughters house about 250 feet from well house. How is your water pressure over that distance from pressure tank to house? I want to keep both pressure tanks in same pump house for maintenance reasons but don't want to sacrifice pressure. Thanks
My water pressure is great. 40/60 pressure switch at the well house and I get about 35/55 at the house which is over 450ft away.
@@petebeasttexashomesteading Fantastic, I was hoping you would say that. First time I've set up a two house system off one well pump. I've worked on a 27 home water system but that was massive and too Many years ago. Biggest problem now is finding an inexpensive certified perk tester in my area. Thanks for the help.
@@richarsbritt4987 I would put a 119 gallon pressure tank in your well house so your pump is not constantly cycling on and off because two houses are now drawing from one pump.
@@petebeasttexashomesteading Oh I got ya beat hands down on that 😅, I'm installing an 1,100 gallon holding tank with a 300 gallon float switch. This will keep tank between 1,100 down to 800. Each house will have their own smaller submersible pump and tank giving each house their own pressure. Now in the event the well pump goes out and each house keeps using, there will be an emergency power cut off switch that kicks in at 300 gallons shutting off both houses. Not sure why I'm looking forward to this project but I am a LITTLE concerned with how excited I am 😆. I plan on posting pictures of everything when done.
@@richarsbritt4987 Wow! I guess you won't have a problem with the pump cycling too much 👍
GOOD JOB , SMART PEOPLE ... CHEER ..👉👉👍👍👍🙋♂️
Thank you
Another idea i have seen on engineer775 is to ad a handpump to your well that you can use to get the pressure up to however high you want it. That way you have water at your house, even if you are for wathever reason, are not able to use a generator or other power source. (think of emp, solar flare, mechanical problem with your generator, or out of fuel)
I've looked in to those hand pumps, but I don't think I have enough room in my casing to have both hand pump and the regular line together. Plus my well house is too far from the house and I would have to drill another well closer to the house for it to be more convenient to use.....But I'll keep looking thanks.
Nice job well job
Great ideas in this video. Thanks!
Thank you
never apologize for sweat, without it we would have nothing, gets just as hot here in louisiana
Yep very true 👍
in australia the depth is 4ft must use conduct
4 foot ?? 1200 mm deep for power?? Dunno what state your in but in queensland ..power in orange conduit 600 mm ( 2 ft) deep ...no shallower and cable danger tape in trench to a depth of 300mm not shallower ..but thats domestic....smarter if you back fill with sand ..just to brind attention to when your excavating later on down the track
Gostei muito do sistema prático e eficiente, vou fazer um pra mim enterrar as mangueiras,obrigado parabéns,Brasil
Obrigado, funciona bem para tubos de plástico flexível.
Sooo how about if you want to do it this way but bury wire in conduit??
It's not possible to bury wire in conduit this way unless the wire is already in a roll of flexible polyethylene type conduit.
@@petebeasttexashomesteading If you glued your all the conduit together with the wire already inside the conduit and glued it to the piece that is attached to the ripper and pull it through the ditch as your going. Why would it not work?
@@w0lf1969 Yes that would work too. But the wire I pulled is rated for direct burial and it's much less work and cost less doing it like I did in the video.
How’s that mahindra holding up?
It's holding up great, I haven't had any problems with it.
I like it! Instead of “wife fed”, add a spool support for the wire to feed as you go. If you patent it, I get 25% 🤑!
👍
the funny part was , when she tells him the better speed he "better use"
If you install a cycle stop valve for your well pump system you can eliminate the pressure tank. Those pressure tanks don’t last very long.
Ya my pressure tank just failed after 21 years.
A cycle stop valve will prevent the pump from cycling on and off when the water is running continuously, by keeping the pressure a bit lower than the pump cut off pressure. Reducing the number of on/off cycles saves wear on the pump, not the pressure tank.
I need one that can lay wire to 3ft. Any thoughts on if that could work?
You would have to cut and weld an extension on to it and make sure your tractor is at least 50+ hp and pull it in lowest gear.
Maybe it's a difference in soil/sod but the issue I always have with my subsoiler is it accumulates sod on the leading edge of the vertical shank, which makes more of a mess than anything...rips up in huge chunks... Seems like I need to put an edge on that face
Putting an edge on it should do it 👍
Will this work at all in rocky soil?
If it's small rocks, I think it would be fine. But not big boulder type rocks.
How many HP is your tractor? I wonder if a compact tractor would have enough power to pull the subsoiler. Also, I'm curious why no plastic conduit was used.
My tractor is 55hp and it around 7000lbs. And it didn't even phase the tractor. A compact might be too light and just spin it's tires but I'm not sure. The wire I buried is a direct burial wire and doesn't need PVC conduit which makes it much easier and way less work than digging a trench and fishing the wire through the conduit.
Nice job.
Thank you 👍
Just did this with the back blade on my tractor. It sucked. This would have been better.. . I went deep enough to tip the tractor on its side! Not bad as it was in the hole... drove it out .... I did run a string and orange ground paint because I wanted to be sure I used as little wire as possible...
Great job Pete! I was wandering, I live in east Texas and the frost line is 6 inches deep. If I were to use a subsoiler and come back with a middle buster, do you think I could lay some water line?
I hear people are doing that. Maybe running the middle buster over it twice will get you down more than 6 inches.
Texas + August = HELL!!!
Adam Gipson You got that right 👍
You should have made a metal sweep and had a spool holder built on to that attachment or you could feed electrical wire through the suites as you plow lay The wire it would unroll from the spool
Nice job!
I hope you figured the distance and voltage drop to the pump, otherwise you will burn up the pump due to low voltage.
The voltage to the pump is 120 volts per leg and at the pump I'm getting 117.5 so it's pretty good. It's been working great too.
Electrical cable underground without PVC is going to be a wakeup call not too far in the distance future. Folks out here in the country often cut corners and that's ok sometimes.
He's not cutting corners. That grey cable he's suing is UF cable...Underground Feeder. It's designed and intended for direct burial. Besides being harder to strip than regular old "romex" it's also a lot more expensive. He did it right.
It's kinda cutting a corner...conduit and thhn would be best.
What I noticed was your PVC conduit installation on the side of your house is missing the required expansion fitting on your horizontal run. PVC will expand and contract from winter to summer temperatures. One 10 ft. run of PVC can expand and contract 3/8th of an inch over a years time. Having the correct straps and expansion joints is required by NEC section 347.
I could not tell from your video, but any electrical installation between grade and 8 ft above grade., exposed to physical damage, is required to be in schedule 80 (rigid) PVC for protection.
As it looked like you were coming off your main panel, a maximum 5% voltage drop is allowed to your end device. If your voltage at your panel reads 240 volts, at the pump house you should read no less than 228 volts. A 2 HP pump has a full load current of 12 amps. A #6 awg conductor has an area of 26,240 circular mills. The resistance (K) of copper conductors is 12.9 ohms. To find the wire size needed for your the formula is CM = 2 x 475 (distance) x 12.9 x 12 / 12 (VD) = 12,225 CM or a size #8 AWG.
As I teach my apprentices, a home owner may do their own electrical work, but a clause in every home owners insurance policy states that all electrical work must be done to National Electrical Code standards or the policy does not have to be paid in case of electrical fire.
It sounds like you might have some book smarts but you made one major mistake in your calculation. You left out the depth of the well in your calculation. Where I live it is not uncommon to have wells over 500 ft with submersible pumps. You have to add the depth of the pump to the distance. So instead of 475 ft it really should have been 475 plus the depth of the well. If the well is 500 ft deep he should have run #4 AWG.
Good thing for all homeowners that inspectors, firemen, insurance investigators, and most electricians are pretty much not doing a job 100 percent. NO HOUSE has ever been wired fully to code I'll guarantee. Not even your company, lol. There is ALWAYS a strap or staple or something wrong that is out of code. You did teach me something about those expansion joints! Thanks.
So why not use that to tie into your house power and ditch the 2nd meter?
That's exactly what I did in the video.
What horsepower is your tractor and it’s weight?
It's a 55 hp tractor and wieghs about 6000 lbs.
Very very good
Thank you
Why not make the curved conduit out of curved metal pipe?
Good Job! That would have been a tough job if you had to dig that distance by hand.
Lod Price I was originally going to use a spade shovel utility companies use to bury cable, but that wasn't deep enough.
awesome idea Sir
Rodney Wroten Thank you
Since it's removable, why didn't you use metal conduit and weld it?
That would work too.
great helper
👍
I want to build me one of those but I wonder if the smaller tractors will pull one of those. I mean yours is 50 hp and it pulls it like its not even back there. I'm not sure a smaller tractor like 30hp and below would be able to do that. I know your mahindra is a lot heavier than my kubota. at any rate I loved the video and that tractor is really nice!
daveknowshow Thank you, I think a 25 HP or more can handle a subsoiler. Just put it in low range and 1st gear and let her rip :)
sweet, they seem cheap enough to buy one and try it.
daveknowshow dave i have a 24 hp gray market tractor and it does a great job with my middle buster/subsoiler. Go for it with your bota!
my 26 hp mahindra has no problems even cutting through roots
Dave, my old Kubota BX-24 has no problem pulling my King Kutter subsoiler, even with its much wider middle buster plow blade I use to dig up potatoes.
Pete, I appreciate your taking the time to show what you did. I have a 30' flagpole about 300' from my house/barn breaker box and was trying to avoid all the trenching/digging required to lay in the code-required 8-3 wire for a 20-amp circuit to feed a 50-75 watt spotlight and probably some low voltage driveway lighting and holiday lighting later. I'll be building a similar attachment for my subsoiler this spring, before the ground gets brick-hard.
Nicely done. Subbed you.
Thank you
What would happen to the hitch if you hit a huge rock?
Nothing, of it was a really big rock then it would just stop the tractor and all four wheels would be spinning.
Most rippers have a shear bolt
I can tell you that a 'friend' told me if you are full speed on a FM road in a 53 hp tractor and accidentally drop the middle buster it will twist while finding the road bed...quickly...in about 2 feet distance from engagement!
Wow great idea !
Thank you
Don't need a T-post... Just bury that first 20 feet or so - - - and then tamp the ground well. The friction from the tamped soil will hold the wire.
I wanna try this with fiber.
Nice...
For your tabs to prevent bending/over tightening use a spacer. Small metal tubing or numerous washers for spacing
Coy Patton Good idea, thanks 👍
Nice work 👍🏻
Thank you
Just so i understand you put this wire in so if the power goes out you can run the pump off the generator at the house and not the one at the pump?
Correct.
Pete B. Very cool you cant be to prepared i learned that the hard way in 2009 are power was out for 4 weeks. Now i try to keep at least 100 gallons of red diesel at all times.
Matt Boyd Awesome, that's definitely being prepared. 👍
Fantastic!
run a stick of rebar with the wire hooked to around it in the ground at ur starting... self feeding
wrote that before i seen u use the t post
👍
Smart man