Electrical Service - Trench, Conduit, & Final Connections

Today, I shared the rental of a trenching machine with my dad.  We used the machine to trench the 100 feet from the service pole to the circuit box on the cabin.  The trench was 14" deep at the shallowest point which placed my 2" conduit a full 12" under ground.

With the trench complete, I glued together 10 pieces of schedule 40 PVC.  The 10th piece needed to be cut slightly in order to fit perfectly in the trench.  Once cut, I glued a 90 degree bend on each side and dropped the conduit into the trench.

With the conduit somewhat in place, I ran the electrical cable through the conduit with a pull rope in case I need to run anything through the conduit later.  I then cut two lengths of conduit and glued them to the 90's to complete the connection to the circuit breaker box on the cabin and the opposite side on the service pole.  

While the electrical cable I ran included an 8 gauge ground wire, I installed an 8' grounding rod at the cabin similar to what I installed at the electrical pole.  

A few connections later and the pre-wired cabin was ready.  It is quite nice to have electricity in the cabin.  It opens up several opportunities that did not exist before.  The timing was perfect as I took the week off work to stay the rest of the week at the cabin.  

Electrical Service - Removing Old Equipment

When the electric company visited a couple of weeks back, we discussed options for obtaining electric service.  They prefer to install above ground service where the customer's meter/breaker pole is 20 to 25 foot from the main service pole.  

There is an existing pole on the property but it is about 50' from the main service pole.  I'd already decided against using this pole for the electrical service for a few reasons:

1. The pole is on the wrong side of the drive for entering the property resulting in electrical wires running over the drive.
2. The existing meter and breaker box could not be used as the brass connectors are all incredibly rusted and are only for 100 amp service.
3. The existing location is a real eye sore as it is very visible and the new location would be in the far corner of the property.

I decided to leave the pole for now but remove all equipment from the pole.  Later, I might decide to remove the pole or just use it to mount a light which could be used to light up the area around the cabin.  After removing all the hardware, I leveled the ground around the pole and then stacked a few rocks around it to keep weeds and grass from growing right next to it.

The utility pole only had one line running from it to a small RV pole right in front of the new cabin location.  I was not opposed to leaving the small RV pole but considering I would be using a new meter pole, I'd have to rerun all the wiring to it so I decided to remove it too.  Luckily, the wiring from the meter pole to the small RV pole was only about 6 inches below the ground so I was able to pull it up by hand.  This cleaned up the area even more and will open more options for installing the cabin.

I've kept all the equipment as I might try to use the breaker box, the metal outlet boxes or some of the other equipment in the shed later.  For now, I'll just put them in the shed for storage.

Electrical Service - Existing Cabin Electrical Setup

The cabin is currently wired for electricity.  I took a few pictures of the electrical equipment today for planning purposes.

The exterior electrical box receives three 4 gauge wires from the electrical meter at the front of the property.  There is one 150 amp breaker in the panel.  In this picture, the front of the panel is off.  However, when it is in place, you can access the switch and easily turn off all power to the cabin.

This is the interior breaker box which is almost immediately directly behind the exterior box.  The panel has room for eight different breakers but only four are currently used.  One is used for the lights, one for the plugs around the walls, one for a dedicated plug for a window AC unit, and the last for a dedicated plug for a fridge.  

I'll need to decide if I will mount the electrical meter to the cabin and how I want to create circuits for items outside of the cabin.  I'm not sure that I need many circuits outside the cabin but I want to plan for additions later.  I might want to add a large light, run a power line to the shed, or who knows.  Better to do it right the first time than keep doing it over again in the future.

Electrical Service - Inspecting Existing Items

Today, I checked the electrical pole and connections on the property.  There is no meter so I'll need to get one installed.  Before taking that step, I at least wanted to make sure what I had was functional

There is a little corrosion on the ends of the wire inside the meter box but the actual points where the meter connects appears to be fine.

I expected to find a master breaker inside the box but did not.  There appears to be only four different circuits.  I expect one is on the right rear of this pole, one is on the left rear of this pole, and the other two are on a remote pole which was used with an RV in the past.  However, I've not yet taken off the panel to confirm and get everything labeled.

I'm not sure about the top two outlets are for as they don't look like anything I've seen before.

The top of the remote RV pole has a standard outlet.

This is the bottom outlet on the RV pole.  I think this is a standard style RV connection but I'm not sure if it is 110 or 220.