Underground utilities. Pros and cons

[Budweiser John]

Spend what it takes to put everything in nonmetallic conduit. At best, direct burial wire is only a temporary instillation. Sooner, or later, you'll find that out.
Additionally, skip the TSC variety plastic water line and get the good stuff from a professional plumbing supply house for the same reason.

 

[mdjohn1427]

The good Stuff. For water service lines you mean PEX or CPVC?

 

[boggen]

underground and crossing creek = most likely some sort of permits. that will need be done.

post 15 by LD1 *big thumbs up* contact local electrical company. generally they will send someone out and talk with you at the property. and actually see the lay of the land and what needs to be dealt with. they should be able to get back to you after that with a price, possible cost for transformer, if they can not hook up to a transformer going to a neighbors.

electrical company first plan of attack.... should be free bid per say.
next contact a couple electrical companies, and get a couple bids from them. they might be able to install it all. and then just require actual hook up via electrical company.

if you got the know how and machinery, you might be able to put some of it in yourself to save some costs. maybe trenches, or putting a hose, and back filling. but it completely depends on the power company. if there transformer is going between there lines, your diy stuff, and then finally to there transformer. they may say "heck no" and require this or that be done and by a certified person. forcing you to pay for someone to do it for you. which may be a good thing. if any down wires = there problem and not yours for cost.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

House is 1400 feet from the road, so would have taken several poles to get electricity, phone, and cable there. We buried them about 3 to 4 feet down, running them through 3 separate pvc pipes, and yellow plastic warning marker tape about a foot above the pipes. Haven't had a single problem with any of them since 2001.

 

[ultrarunner]

Getting a meter can be a very expensive proposition.

The Hospital has leased one of the smaller sites for an imaging center and part of the deal was the tenant was to install a dedicated utility owned electric meter.

The estimates to add a single meter are coming in between 80 and 100k... just to add a meter!

The building is already served with a separate 600 amp 480v breaker and has a dedicated panels and transformer inside.

The existing 600 amp breaker is only 5' from the utility transformer...

Just saying something that should be simple can get expensive fast...

 

[Budweiser John]

Mdjohn1427
There are various grades of direct burial plastic pipe. What I was referring to is the type typically used by well contractors which I believe is schedule 40.
I've never used pex or CPVC for under ground although, I don't see any problem with pex underground as long as the fittings and band clamps are non corrosive.

 

[Osu98]

Don't bury the pex underground without sleeving it. I was going to do the same thing to run some water for stock tanks. The 25 yr old young lady at our plumbing supply place brought up the good point that underground critters can eat through it.

As far as underground utilities, our homesite is 1700 ft off of the road on a hill. The local electric coop ran underground lines and we ran the water line. The only problem so far has been controlling the erosion after filling in the trenches. It has kind of been a nightmare. Other than that we are very pleased.

 

[mdjohn1427]

well, met with the electrical companies engineer today. option 1...bury power line down the middle of my driveway 1900' from source to site...price $37,000. option 2...install power line above ground down the side of my driveway (same distance 1900')...price $23,000

needless to say...I'm speechless....

 

[Billrog]

I do a lot of under ground services for the under ground can you hire some one to dig the trench buy the cable yourself have the utility company inspect before burying? The under ground wire is very expensive with copper for a 200 amp service it could be $19,000 for the wire alum. would be cheaper but a heavier gauge necessary.
For overhead are there private contractors that could give you a price.I had my over head installed for 1/5th the price the hydro company gave me by using a private contractor.

 

[Osu98]

well, met with the electrical companies engineer today. option 1...bury power line down the middle of my driveway 1900' from source to site...price $37,000. option 2...install power line above ground down the side of my driveway (same distance 1900')...price $23,000

needless to say...I'm speechless....

That sounds pretty consistent with our electric coop here in Oklahoma. 1500 ft of underground was about $26,000. I just lucked out because of the setup I was able to split it three ways with my neighbors. I still almost threw up when I wrote the $8000+ check.

 

[KiotiKowboy]

That sounds pretty consistent with our electric coop here in Oklahoma. 1500 ft of underground was about $26,000. I just lucked out because of the setup I was able to split it three ways with my neighbors. I still almost threw up when I wrote the $8000+ check.

These numbers are exactly why I am considering an off-grid solar solution. For $40K, I can get a pretty decent setup and skip a lot of labor trenching. The good news is, with fed rebate of 30 percent and dealer rebate of 25 percent, the deal gets even sweeter to go off-grid.

 

[ericher69]

These numbers are exactly why I am considering an off-grid solar solution. For $40K, I can get a pretty decent setup and skip a lot of labor trenching. The good news is, with fed rebate of 30 percent and dealer rebate of 25 percent, the deal gets even sweeter to go off-grid.

sure but don't forget to factor in replacement costs for your solar panels, batteries, inverters etc etc. they don't last forever.

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[KiotiKowboy]

sure but don't forget to factor in replacement costs for your solar panels, batteries, inverters etc etc. they don't last forever.

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I suspect .. going in to this at age 60, most components will fail under new ownership As my dad liked to say, as his age increased ... "It comes with a lifetime guarantee!"

 

[ultrarunner]

^^^ I like that and hope you don't mind if I use it?

Around here it is sometimes cheaper and faster to find an old homestead with utilities in place and build what you want...

The cost to bring them in kills a lot of dreams and then there are the special service districts which show up as taxes...

 

[ericher69]

I suspect .. going in to this at age 60, most components will fail under new ownership As my dad liked to say, as his age increased ... "It comes with a lifetime guarantee!"

You better hope so as most solar has a 15-25 year lifespan...

Batteries much less 6yrs before replacement.

Good luck whatever you decide.

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[paulharvey]

If the aerial work requires clearing oof any sort, i would look into doing that your self. If you want underground I would look into doing digging and conduit yourself. That's a lot of money to not at least look at something to reduce price.

 

[dave1949]

You better hope so as most solar has a 15-25 year lifespan...

Batteries much less 6yrs before replacement.

Good luck whatever you decide.

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Battery life depends on what type of battery and how carefully they are used.

This article is a good battery overview:
Off-Grid Batteries: Page 2 of 4 | Home Power Magazine

Home Power is a respected source for solar info. They say 15-20 years for industrial flooded lead-acid batteries and around 10 years for AGM batteries. More expensive than golf cart or L16 batteries but can be better choices in the long run.

 

[tractchores]

This is and old thread, so I'm sure the OP has already done the project. For others looking at something similar one possible new solution to consider is underground boring. I just did an underground utility line and had to cross a driveway and did some research into boring solutions. They range from relatively inexpensive machines that use a pneumatic head to true drill bits that can go miles. The pneumatic ones compact soil and pull a HPDE conduit behind them. In the right soil they have a pretty good range and can handle decent sized rocks. This method is surprisingly cheap if there's a contractor in the area and you can actually rent the machines with some training. For longer runs there are companies that do directional boring and they can go for miles if needed, you see them a lot putting lines under highways. The really cool part about what they offer is that they can go under bodies of water, wetlands, etc. They also don't care about soil types or rocks. Many of the cable companies now use the pneumatic machines to put underground lines to your house around here and its a great solution with no soil disturbance and far cheaper than digging. You could definitely use this technique to go under the creek.

 

[SPIKER]

One thing is I would NOT put it in the center of the drive, use left or right side 4 or 6 feet over. I would rent trencher and put it in underground myself. One thing is we don't know the local ground conditions so maybe too rocky or steep.??

There are local contractors that can do the work, and if you provide open trench that saves a lot of time/costs when expensive labor has to dig the ditch.

Having sand placed in bottom (by you) and ready for line to be placed in conduit in the trench by the pros is not too bad...

Mark

 

[ultrarunner]

Going down the center of the drive seems typical here... most of the area is heavily forested.

Why is going down the center of a gravel drive less desirable?