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When wire needs to be outdoor / direct burial rated

10K views 23 replies 8 participants last post by  Bob Mariani 
#1 ·
HI;

I have a lamp post in my front yard, There is a LB on the side of the house where the cable exits and goes in the ground. In the house the cable ran all the way back to the switch box, where it gets power and is switched.

I had to cut the cable back a couple months ago when working on my floor, and had to junction it in 2 spots to extend it. It is sloppy and I am going to fix it.

At the time, everything was frozen up, and I could not get the LB open. Now that I got it open, I see that they made a junction inside of the LB. Both the cable coming into the LB and the cable going into the ground are the direct burial style of romex.

Is there any reason I need to use the direct burial style of romex back to the switch, if it junctions just outside of the house in that LB? In other words, can regular romex still be used if it only exits the house for a few inches inside of a LB then junctions to direct burial style romex?


Thanks
Jamie
 
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#3 ·
No need for a plug here, thought I would have considered one on the lamp post if there was a 3 wire feed going out there.

I will have to figure out how I can change this LB out to a box without damaging the wire to the lamp post. The wire to the lamp post runs under the driveway and would require concrete to be removed to replace it, so I am not very interested in doing that.

Maybe I will just have to leave the old work alone and live with the splice inside.

Jamie
 
#6 ·
The LB is attached to the conduit in the ground that sleeves the romex with a crimp on connector. So I think I will have to cut the conduit just below the LB. If I did that, I could easily attach a new weatherproof box. But how do I remove that LB or cut the conduit just below it without damaging the romex that is buried? There is no slack or play in the romex that goes into the ground. Maybe I have to dig this all up and then put in a new piece of conduit. and slip the old wire up into while I have it all dug up.







Jamie
 
#7 ·
This is what I thought, I thought as long as it was a UL listed LB and it had the required CU IN that it was fine to splice in it.

I just don't see any other remotely easy way to deal with this other than just running romex again and making the splice in the LB the way it has been for the past 50 years.

Thanks
Jamie
 
#14 · (Edited)
Lamp Post Problem Solved...

Well the old LL only stuck into the ground about 10 inches sleeving the romex. I found a new LB made out of AL for just a couple bucks, and it had the cuin printed on it. I put a compression fitting on it to a stick of EMT, on the other side that is in the house, I screwed in a ENT fitting and ran EMT to the switch box, then pulled THHN. Made nice little splices in the LL.

Now when we redo the driveway in a couple years and we can bury conduit, it will be easy to just connect a a piece of schd 80 to this LL.

I didn't bond the ground to the LL, which maybe I should have done. Think I should have drilled and tapped a hole for a green 10-32? I have no even remotely easy way to GFCI this line. :(













Jamie
 
#15 ·
Well the old LL only stuck into the ground about 10 inches sleeving the romex. I found a new LB made out of AL for just a couple bucks, and it had the cuin printed on it. I put a compression fitting on it to a stick of EMT, on the other side that is in the house, I screwed in a ENT fitting and ran EMT to the switch box, then pulled THHN. Made nice little splices in the LL.

Now when we redo the driveway in a couple years and we can bury conduit, it will be easy to just connect a a piece of schd 80 to this LL.

I didn't bond the ground to the LL, which maybe I should have done. Think I should have drilled and tapped a hole for a green 10-32? I have no even remotely easy way to GFCI this line. :(
I wouldn't lose any sleep over the grounding issue right now. But I would try to get a GFCI on that feed somehow. Perhaps a separate box with a dead face GFCI? And is that EMT going into the earth? And still picking a nit, that IS an LB:laughing:
 
#19 ·
Yea it should. But not in 1963 when it was installed. This all started because I needed to get the romex out of the way of sistering my joists. Wasn't intended to be a modification to the circuit.

GFCI's are a good safety feature. Proper grounding and bonding go a very long way towards safety. I tend to bond everything metal together, prevents any metal item from ever becoming energized, as it has a clear fault path. If everything is properly grounded / bonded, then you can never have a metal; lamp post, garage door, fridge, etc become energized because if they did become energized, they would cause the breaker to open. Even if the break did not open for some reason, eveything would be at the same potential. When something becomes enerized and we have things at different potentials, due to improper bonding / grounding, thats when we have a problem.

I'll take proper bonding any day over a GFCI if I had to choose.

That said, I feel an obligation now to go fix this circuit. Good thing I have a really long set of glow sticks. I have to go cut up the floor now. (Yea I am serious...well it might be in the am...)

Jamie
 
#21 ·
I built it myself. :)

I think the one in the photo was a 6 ... Yea a bunch of big ones in the kitchen.


I think I need to go buy that rotozip. Now I am trying to get this lamp post on a GFCI. I keep using this wicked little fold up keyhole say I have and my 9's. when plaster is in my way.

I'll post a photo to show what I just did to the foyer in an effort to get the lamp GFCI protected.

Jamie
 
#22 ·
I don't even like triple boxes :laughing:, not a single one in the house
Sunroom & kitchen I have 4 quad boxes spread around
I use the 2x & 3x switches to avoid larger boxes
In the bar area I may have a larger switch box for the lights in the great room - but I'll be able to hide that below the bar
 
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