VirginBuilder

Temporary Power adventures

I nearly forgot about putting temporary power in! Another learning experience!

So, we needed power, and the city of Seattle is really particular about what sort of power pole they'd connect to. I figured it might be easier to buy a pre-made one from someone else who'd done this sort of work, but I didn't know enough about the requirements to be a good shopper. I ended up buying something that would not work for a decent amount of money and the only usable thing I got from it was the 20 foot long 4 x 6 post. I went down the Home Depot and bought the rest of the outdoor breaker/meter equipment and installed it. I included two sets of outlets on separate circuits in case we had large electrical demands. This turned out to be an excellent idea. Of course, I put outdoor, wet location boxes that can be used in the rain and that are protected by ground fault circuit interruptors (GFCI). Required by code, but even if not it is a really good idea. The last requirement for the pole is that it needed two 8 foot long ground rods driven into the ground that the grounding line from the box goes to. I'm not an electrician and always get the terminology mixed up between grounding line and grounded line. Regardless, that Wiring Simplified book mentioned earlier was useful and I installed everything correctly. The rods were insanely difficult. I could get them about 4-5 feet into the ground and then would hit really hard clay or some massive boulder. After about 20 trys I bought an 8 lb sledge hammer. I've decided that it is clay, because each slam would get the rod about 1/8". This was getting old. I went down to the local labor center and hired a guy to drive both poles in. It took him 4 hours of solid sledge hammering. He also helped clear some brush that was getting uppity around the site.

I had various suggestions for resolving this problem before I hired it out. Two 8' rods is actually more than most municipalities require for a house. Generally just one pole is sufficient. So, one suggestion was to cut the rods 5' long with a sharp end to make driving easier. This would be enough ground protection, particularly in moist Seattle. Another suggestion was to use a 3 foot drill bit (a flexible bit used to drill down into joint bays for electrical work) and filling it with water several times. I actually did this before I hired the guy. This is what allowed me to get the sledge hammer to push it in at all. I didn't want to go with the shorter ground rods except as a last resort. Fortunately it wasn't required. Looking back, this would have been a good time to buy and use a heavy-duty impact hammer (basically a medium sized jack-hammer.) I ended up renting and then buying a Hilti TE-76 that has a hammer-drill or impact hammer mode and they offer drivers for fitting over the end of ground rods to drive them in. I essentially would have just had to pull the trigger and let the tool do the work. Unfortunately I did not realize just how often I was going to rent that darn drill (at around $80 a pop) so it didn't even occur to me to buy one. They are around $1600 new, and rarely show up for sale locally. However, I ended up buying one near the end of all the concrete work off of eBay for around $800. It has worked great. If you need to do any concrete drilling and even think you might need it more than twice, go buy a used TE-76 (or a new one if you plan on doing this several times.) They drill through concrete like butter and have various attachments for breaking up heavy clay in the yard. I know that Bosch also makes some nice heavy-duty hammer-drills, but this was the one I had tried and liked. Hilti also makes smaller (more affordable) units, but once you have a large hole to drill through a concrete wall and it takes 2-hours to do you'll wish you'd bought the larger one. Also, get the ATC option on the drill. I forget what it stands for, but if the bit binds in the concrete, it disconnects the bit from the motor and keeps you from breaking a wrist or wrenching your back. Again, if you can't work on the project for a week or more, who care's that you "saved" $400!

Often, buying is less expensive than renting, and this is a theme that will pop up several more times!

posted by VirginBuilder @ 12:22 PM