Lot Five Nine: Temporary Power

The house is going to be located 250' away from the transformer so I either have to have some very long heavy duty extension cords or I need to install temporary power closer to the build.

After talking with the electrical company, doing a field visit with them, and filling out all the paperwork, they approved a remote temporary power pole up to 275' away ... so I'm just under which ultimately means I don't have to pay thousands extra.

Beside the transformer, you can only hand dig and the pit has to be 4' x 4' x 3'.

Marked out the area for the pit

It took me about two hours to dig because it was so rocky and having to be careful until I found wires or conduit. Luckily there was only one wire that was in a conduit in the dig area but unfortunately it was the neighbors phone cable. I have no idea why anyone would run their phone cable right beside an electrical transformer but my electrical feed will be just 6" away from it. The electrical company said it would be fine but I always keep a minimum of 12" whenever I can.

Next I used the mini-ex to start trenching. Switched to the 2' bucket and went to town digging a 2' x 3' deep trench about 235' to the temp power pole location.

After I got the trench dug, spent a couple hours cleaning it manually and laying in the conduit for phone and electrical. The phone company dropped off a roll of cable so I threaded that through as I laid the pipe but the power company will pull the electrical wire when they tie into the transformer. I had to supply 240' of 3" Schedule 40 rigid conduit and a 3/8" rope for them to pull.

There is about 18"+ separation between the two conduits in the trench so I want have any problems with interference.