tractor size for cable plow

[sjames]

Hello all,

This is my first post, but ive been reading here off and on for quite a while.

My question is, i was considering building a cable plow to run about 300' of 10/2 to an outbuilding. Am i wasting my time? Will my BX23 be able to handle this task?

thanks

 

[sweettractors]

You will have no problem, if you make a pass or 2 before the final laying cable pass. If your soil is sandy, 1 pass may do it? Ken Sweet

 

[sjames]

Thanks for the reply.

The soil here is not sandy, its a couple inches of topsoil over clay, small rocks. This was all farmland at one time so you dont usually see any big rocks till you get down 18" or so.

Ive seen various versions of cable plows, most have a pipe to feed the cable though. Is it possible to just direct pull the cable into the trench? Or will friction break the cable in short order?

 

[sweettractors]

W use a subsoiler with a ell piece of heavy wall conduit welded or attached to the back side. Ken Sweet

 

[Scotty370]

st james- I'm interested in you project, just don't understand that "Direct Pull" comment! You certainly can't pull 300' of cable with the cable reel at the out building, and try to 'drag ' it all the way to the source, with a 'Sub-soiler'! I'm with sweettractor. A couple of passes with the 'subsoiler' to break your path, on the initial runs, then on the 'install run' your dealing with busted soil! That said, I'm of the mind that the last run must have the coil mounted on the tractor (Using the ROPS for a temp mount?), and feeding it down the fabricated tube, behind the subsoiler to result in an acceptable installation.
Copper cable doesn't take kindly to 'tensil' stress. Your other option would be to bury 5/8" gasline service (or water) tubing, and then insert it with the cable. Then your sure the cable isn't damaged! Just my 2 cents, but there's a lot of talent on this board! ~Scotty

My other hope is you don't "Leave us 'hanging"! With some new members, they pose a question, get answers/suggestions, and are never heard from again! Don't be one of them!!

 

[cspot]

You might want to look at renting a trencher. I rented one to run some electric and water lines about the same distance. I think it was a little over $200 for the day and that included the insurance and the trailer to haul it. It was a walk-behind on rubber tracks. The nice thing about it is that it doesn't tear the yard up as much as a tractor and you have a nice even ditch. I would recommend running the wire in conduit. This way if you ever have a problem you can just pull a new wire thru it. This would save you from having to build anything. When I did mine my father in law wanted to run a couple lines so we split the cost. That made it really cheap for both of us.

 

[CharlieS]

something to keep in mind, depending on the load you're applying. 300 feet of 10-2, maxed out for load amperage will have enough voltage drop to cause potential problems.
you need to calculate you're load and VD to be sure drop isnt excessive.

Also i'd never use anything other than pvc conduit if you decide to sleeve the conductor. besides being illegal, looking to the future if someone digs it up and cuts it thinking its a water line for example, that could be an accident waiting to happen.
You'll be much better off renting a trencher and doing it right the first time.

 

[sjames]

I appreciate everyone input.

I may rent a trencher and do it that way. I will have to decide before winter.

I have lease gas and my seperator is in this building, it tends to freeze a couple of times per winter, I was only going to run some heat tape from this line, so load should be pretty minimal. That run is actually about 240', the other 60' is seperate for an electric fence around a bee hive.

 

[Scotty370]

Re-thinking this, I'm with C-spot! Those chain diggers leave a nice fine 'spoil' for backfilling. Also, if your buying Underground Rated Cable, they really want it buried in direct contact with the earth, as opposed to a conduit. Don't know why, unless it's heat disapation. I've always been in the "More protection is better" camp! Maybe some of our Electrical guys can 'chime-in'! Let us know how you make out!~Scotty

PS: Ah! You lucky guy! Lease Gas? Free heat? I'm envious!!! ~Scotty

 

[handirifle]

I cannot comment on the "why" of direct burial not in conduit, but can tell you it would a real bear to do. Here's my .02 worth.

I agree on the trencher, and conduit. Running 10/2 I assume you're setting up for 110v at the end? Black, white and ground? If so, it would be easy to pull that through 1" PVC conduit. Here's what you do.

Run the trencher, and make sure you go deep enough on the FIRST pass. I say that because it has been MY personal experience, that there is NO second pass. Every time I have tried this I end up using my truck to pull the trencher out of the trench. The wall of the trench will usually collapse under the heavy weight of the trencher.

Lay the conduit, USING SWEEPS not elbows. Next use a shop vac and such a nylon rope about 1/8 to 3/16" dia through. Just tie a paper towel or similar, that loosly fills the conduit (You do not need it tight, to the end of the nylon rope. Stick the newly formed wad in the conduit and go to the other end with the shop vac. Stick it on the opening of the conduit and let 'er rip. Have someone make sure the rope doesn't tangle, and it should take about 2-3 seconds for a 240ft run.

You may already know how to pull wires, but thought I'd throw out how I do it.

Tie the rope to a larger Mule Tape. This stuff comes (around here) in 500' rolls and is worth every penny you pay. Use the rope to pull the mule tape through. Tie the mule tape to the wires. I lay the tape down about 12" over the wire, opposite direction, and twist the wires over and intertwining the tape into it, with about 6" of it sticking out. The remaining 6" are wrapped around the outside of the twisted wires and tape it all up with electrical tape.

In the last year I have pulled wires from 10ga to 8ga and up to 250ft, and have yet have one come loose. One was 250ft of 10ga wire, 5 wires inside 1 1/4" conduit.

One last note. Stop and think about which end you are starting from for the nylon rope pull. You want to end up pulling the mule tape and wires back out, so you do NOT have to cut the mule tape. ie. So you want the feed end to be where the nylon rope and the wires are fed from. The pull end are where you will have the mule tape roll and vacuum. It IS reusable, so why waste it?

 

[handirifle]

What's "lease gas"?

 

[sweettractors]

What's "lease gas"?

Usually gas produced off your farm or a farm in your area, where the underground rights are held by a 3rd party lease. Ken Sweet

 

[BXpanded]

You shouldn't have any problem plowing it in with a subsoiler like Ken and others described. Make at least one pass first to make sure you can get deep enough without hitting obstructions. If you hit something while you're laying the cable, its often easier to just pull the cable out and restart 'cause once you raise your plow, the wire is pulled up too. There really isn't a good way to stop and restart in the middle of the run without digging a big hole by hand.

As for pulling it in, it can certainly be done if the run is straight. I pulled 150 ft runs of 1 1/2 inch plastic pipe putting in an irrigation system. If you have rocks, I would be concerned with damaging the wire with the abrasion.

Once you get set up it won't take but a few minutes to do the pull. No backfilling, and clean up is obviously not much of an issue.

 

[hanson1999]

You shouldn't have any problem plowing it in with a subsoiler like Ken and others described. Make at least one pass first to make sure you can get deep enough without hitting obstructions. If you hit something while you're laying the cable, its often easier to just pull the cable out and restart 'cause once you raise your plow, the wire is pulled up too. There really isn't a good way to stop and restart in the middle of the run without digging a big hole by hand.

As for pulling it in, it can certainly be done if the run is straight. I pulled 150 ft runs of 1 1/2 inch plastic pipe putting in an irrigation system. If you have rocks, I would be concerned with damaging the wire with the abrasion.

Once you get set up it won't take but a few minutes to do the pull. No backfilling, and clean up is obviously not much of an issue.

i agree. i also have pulled plastic pipe and 10/3 wires for irrigation systems. Way easier than a trencher, just drive the tractor over the line you just pulled and it packs the dirt back down and you can hardly tell you've been there. with a trencher you have a lot of work filling it back in.

Two days ago i pulled 4/0 4/0 2/0 200 amp triplex wire 130 feet from my power pole to shed. Worked great and can hardly tell i disturbed the grass. i'd still be filling in the trench and planting grass if i had used a trencher....

 

[tommu56]

as an electrician
put some conduit in the trench and pull 3# 10 thhn's in (actually if the current is high #8 will be batter for that distance).you will be happier in the long run. replacement will be easier if needed and wires will be protected better.

now on the freezing part is it on the gas line hardware?

if so it might have to be explosion proof.

if its propane you need more surface area to vaporize the gas

don't bother with conduit on uf cable it will be a bear to get in and the thhn is usually cheaper

tom

 

[Cyclone Jake]

LOTS of posts on this in the past. Here are a few:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/135103-burying-wire-subsoiler-advice.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/122515-pulln-cable.html

cable laying - TractorByNet.com

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/72359-subsoiler-burying-electric-wires.html

 

[travis potter]

I just dug a trench with a trincher 150 ft from the house to the new shop. The trinch looked like a snake doging rocks, tree stumps and just stuff. I had bought some 3 in pvc on crages list so I used it. I pulled 3 #8, 3#6 3for the alarm I pulled a 1/4 in rope at the same time just incase. This was an easy pull but I added the up sweeps after I did the streight pull. The electrical people will yell but I'm tying a 6 and 8 together for about 90 amps of wire with a 75 amp breaker if I can find one.

 

[kennyd]

I just dug a trench with a trincher 150 ft from the house to the new shop. The trinch looked like a snake doging rocks, tree stumps and just stuff. I had bought some 3 in pvc on crages list so I used it. I pulled 3 #8, 3#6 3for the alarm I pulled a 1/4 in rope at the same time just incase. This was an easy pull but I added the up sweeps after I did the streight pull. The electrical people will yell but I'm tying a 6 and 8 together for about 90 amps of wire with a 75 amp breaker if I can find one.

That is VERY dangerous. Besides the combining of different gauges (which is bad enough) You also ran low voltage alarm cable in the same conduit? WOW, good luck.

 

[regularjay]

The low voltage wire in the same conduit is no danger at all electrically. You may get interferance on the low voltage circuit but it is totally safe and no electrical hazard whatsoever.

Parallelling two different size wires is NOT a good idea, dont do it!

I second the earlier post about using conduit and pulling THHN.

Direct burial cable (type UF) does not have to be in direct contact with the earth. You can certainly pull it in conduit - its just awfully hard to do. Loose (i,e, individual insulated conductors) wire in PVC is how most professionals would probably do it.

 

[sjames]

lots of good info, thanks all.

I already have a spool of UF cable, so i doubt Ill get XHHW or THHN instead.

Think im going to go ahead and try using a cable plow with a couple dry runs as many have suggested. I suppose this weekend Ill have to get started making the plow.

I appreciate everyone's responses.