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They make splicing kits of varying complexity and price to deal with wet areas. I do not know of any specific examples.

I would recommend soldering the connections no matter what kit or other procedures you use.

Underground wiring must be rated for wet locations even if the wires or cable are in a conduit.
 

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Clean out the area around the damage very well, so you don't end up with contaminated splices. That break looks like it's on a curve. If you can straighten-out that curve you may be able to create enough extra wire so you don't have to splice-in a replacement piece, which would double your work.

Cut out the damaged bits. You don't necessarily have to discard all the exposed conductors where the individual insulation is still intact.

When splicing you have two or three options. For the electrical aspect you can either perform what are known as "Lineman" or "Western Union" splices or use double-ended barrel crimps. If you splice, soldering is optional. (If you don't know how to solder, best skip it entirely.)

Whether you splice or crimp, you want to use shrink tubing over each splice. If you use adhesive-lined heat shrink it will ensure both water-tightness and mechanical integrity. There are wire crimp connectors that come with integral adhesive-lined heat shrink tubing.

The downside to crimping is most people wouldn't know a proper crimp from a hole in the ground. This can be mitigated with proper crimpers, but such crimpers are relatively expensive for a one-off repair job.

Then, once everything is spliced back together, self-vulcanizing tape (not plastic/vinyl electrical tape!) around the whole thing. (You can also use very large diameter shrink tubing--either adhesive lined or taped with self-vulcanizing tape at each end.)

For all heat shrink tubing: The un-shrunken I.D. should be about double the O.D. of the wire or cable to which it will be applied. (You can go smaller if you know what you're doing. Don't go larger or it may not shrink down far enough.)

Advanced technique: To keep the bundle of splices from getting too fat, stagger the individual splices.

Underground wiring must be rated for wet locations even if the wires or cable are in a conduit.
It's low-voltage. Not really an issue in this case, except for longevity.
 

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I had that same thing happen years ago. For the fix, I cut all the wires and slipped a 6" piece of 3/4" PVC over the cable and then used crimp connectors to connect all the wires back together. Then I pulled the PVC sleeve back over the connections and shot it full of RTV silicone. I never had any further problem with it... I owned that property for the next 36 years.

Depending on how many wires you have to connect, you may need to use a larger size PVC to clear the bulk of the crimp connectors.

We did that several times on jobs when we happened to cut the u/g DB phone line while backhoeing.
 

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Discussion Starter · #5 ·
Taking another look today and cleaned off the wires etc there’s actually only ONE wire that’s broken, others are missing their sheaving but the wire is intact. Someone mind posting a link to the needed splice kit? There’s a lot of options on HD/Lowe’s, want to ensure I get the right thing.

So I think my plan is to splice the one wire, and then heat wrap everything??





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