Wire for 50A 220V Service - 110' run

Grey Mountain wrote:
Son-in-law looked at the set up, took every tool I had that might possibly be used in hooking up electricity and threw them in the river, put a lock on the pump house and another lock on the breaker box in the barn, did not give me a key, said he would do it all and warned me never to come close to the connections.

GM

Did you tell him "guys on the Internet told me how to wire it?" I hope not or he'll be taking away your computers and cellphones too.

Son-in-law looked at the set up, took every tool I had that might possibly be used in hooking up electricity and threw them in the river, put a lock on the pump house and another lock on the breaker box in the barn, did not give me a key, said he would do it all and warned me never to come close to the connections.

GM

Son-in-law has not been over yet, expect him tomorrow.

No Purple Martins in the birdhouse yet, but I did see a few Turkey Buzzards circling overhead. Maybe they know something I don't, and are just waiting for me to flip the switch...
...guess I'll havta talk my wife into doing that.

BurbMan wrote:

BTW, code does not allow purple martin houses in residential applications, it must be a wren house.

I inquired about a retirement community in the Dallas area years back and in their latest newsletter this restriction arose. a couple of old biddies were golfing and noticed a bird house that did not meet HOA requirements. No bird houses over 8 (or whatever) ft up unless in a tree or under an eave. the response was that since there was an endemic/pandemic whatever of some disease caused by mosquitoes and since martins were the best hunter of them and required their house to be 11 ft(?) off the ground they basically said to MYOB. Just one of the silly nonsense that those officers of a HOA can implement.
just saw on the news that one HOA was fining residents $200 if their grass was not kept green enough and that was in an area with a severe drought. :s
bumpy

Grey Mountain wrote:
OK, here's what I did:
Enclosed the exposed cable in conduit. Using a 60amp breaker off the pole, used all four wires in the cable (previously, one wire was not used). Installed another breaker box in the barn, two hots, one neutral and one ground. Using two 30amp breakers to feed the 4-pin RV outlet. Separate 10amp circuit for the lights in the barn.
I'll have my son-in-law check everything to make sure I don't curl my hair.

GM

What did your son in law say? Was hoping that a real sparky would say yea/nay on this, I am not an expert on NEC.

BTW, code does not allow purple martin houses in residential applications, it must be a wren house.

LittleBill wrote:
please post the NEC section that aluminum wire must be coated with Noalox

i have never seen it, and i also have seen alot of bare aluminum.

as you said alot of interesting comments on here

I didn't actually state it's in the NEC. It may not be in the NEC (as far as I know), but it's definitely common trade practice with commercial electricians, at least with the ones I used to work with. It's just good practice. I know inspectors definitely like to see it used and I've personally seen them insist on it.

Here's a link to an electrical contractor's website that talks about it.Noalox discussion

More discussion on this contractor's site too: electrical forum.

please post the NEC section that aluminum wire must be coated with Noalox

i have never seen it, and i also have seen alot of bare aluminum.

as you said alot of interesting comments on here

Don't forget that your birdhouse needs to be UL or CSA approved (or equiv.) if you are connection anything electrical to it....

EE here. Nearly 3 decades experience as a consulting engineer in all types of construction.

Some "interesting" advice in this thread. I don't want to have to go back and study everything that has been posted in detail and I don't want to be dumped on, but two things struck me. One is that aluminum has been used for underground and above ground feeder cables for decades. It's a lot cheaper. Whether it is copper or alum., you need to have the correct insulation designation for underground/wet use, such as TWU for example, and it has to be as permitted by the NEC unless it's use has been amended by your local ESA. Absolutely nothing wrong with aluminum as long as it is installed as per code requirements. You must be careful not to nick the wire, you need to wire brush the exposed strands and then apply anti-oxidant like Noalox before terminating it. In a panel lug, as you tighten the lug onto the wire, you wiggle the wire a bit, then re-tighten and repeat this process a couple of times. Second thing is that whatever you connect the wire to, whether it's a receptacle, panelboard lugs or a split-bolt connector, it MUST be approved for use with aluminum. No exceptions. You will see "Cu/Al" on receptacles and panels are okay nowadays with alum. If in doubt on anything, check with the manufacturer or the vendor.

If you check with the NEC, it may state a minimum size for aluminum for different applications. It's been a while since I've read the NEC.

If your house has aluminum wiring, the wire itself is okay but if you have old wiring devices that don't say "Cu/Al" on them, if you pigtail them and/or install new devices and approved wire nuts, then you are fine. Some insurance companies have now caught onto this and are making homeowners hire an electrician to upgrade an entire house and then certify that it's okay. But this conflicts with the regulations because a homeowner (not a neighbor or buddy) is permitted to change their own receptacles and switches. If you don't disclose the fact that their is alum. wiring in your house upon a sale and it subsequently burns down, you could be in trouble. A proper home inspection should pick it up though.

A 50 amp service in an RV is no different than a 100 or 200 amp service in a house. They both have two hot conductors and one neutral and they're both "120/240" volts.

A neutral is only there to carry the unbalanced current. In some cases, a neutral conductor can be a smaller size. But this would be another discussion for another day....

Lastly, don't forget to make sure you have taken care of grounding and bonding properly as per NEC. Very, very important.

Grey Mountain wrote:
OK, lemme see if I got this right: Got two #2AWG aluminum hot leads and one #4AWG aluminum neutral from the meter to the panel in the pump house. From there, I have a 40amp breaker fused to a 60amp double pole single purple wire attached to a 30 foot brass ground wire mounted 50 feet up in the air with a purple martin birdhouse on it. Running quadruple 12-strand CAT 5 from the pump house to the barn with three outdoor speakers attached in the nearby trees. In the barn, I broke up the 10X60' concrete slab, removed all the lights and electrical fixtures and filled the barn back up with bermuda grass hay. Sold my motorhome and moved into a tent down by the river back of our home. Only come out four times a year. Met some nice critters down there who don't argue with me, offer advice or talk back. They can even be dinner from time to time.

GM

Apparently yer not on Critter.net's forum: you should see the thread about you and your opposable thumbs.:B

OK, lemme see if I got this right: Got two #2AWG aluminum hot leads and one #4AWG aluminum neutral from the meter to the panel in the pump house. From there, I have a 40amp breaker fused to a 60amp double pole single purple wire attached to a 30 foot brass ground wire mounted 50 feet up in the air with a purple martin birdhouse on it. Running quadruple 12-strand CAT 5 from the pump house to the barn with three outdoor speakers attached in the nearby trees. In the barn, I broke up the 10X60' concrete slab, removed all the lights and electrical fixtures and filled the barn back up with bermuda grass hay. Sold my motorhome and moved into a tent down by the river back of our home. Only come out four times a year. Met some nice critters down there who don't argue with me, offer advice or talk back. They can even be dinner from time to time.

GM