Here's the situation. Customer has came up with the idea that when the new house is finished he doesn't want anyone laying another trench across the place.
So we're building in a cabinet out near the gate that will be the access point for the telco, cable tv, etc. It will also be where the subpanel is located for all the electrical circuits in that area of the property.
Cabinet: I'm getting gratis a crossconnect box from a telco contractor that's wrecking one out. This is one of those three feet high, four feet long, about sixteen inch wide boxes you see on concrete pads. They're easy to identify because there's usually a telco truck in front of it with a guy with a portable phone on one ear and he's reading the newspaper. We'll bring all the conduits into it. We'll put in a plywood backboard in the middle. One side will communications and the other will be electrical.
Electrical: it's three hundred feet from the cabinet to the master closet where the conduits enter the house. There's another hundred and twenty feet from there to the main breaker panel in the garage. So my plan is to bring three number six copper conductors from the main panel uninterupted to the cabinet. I'm thinking of a two twenty forty amp circuit.
In the cabinet we'll have a twenty amp one ten circuit feeding the gate operator motors. We're also going to have a circuit with a motion detector that has floods in the trees to the side of the gate. That way visitors not only will have plenty of light but it won't be eye level so it blinds them. There will be some additional circuits for tree lights in the trees framing the drive. There will be some accent lights for the landscaping and highlighting the gate and overhead after dark. And then there will also be some circuits for outlets for Christmas decorations etc.
Communications: Friday Verizon let the contract for FTTP in our area. That's fiber to the premise. So there will fiber for future technology. At least two maybe three coaxial cables for the video feed from the entryway to the house. There will be Cat 5 circuitry for any possible situation. The circuitry from the keypad for the gate along with the talk circuit will be arranged through the cabinet.
Conduit: we're placing three inch and a half fiber inner ducts from the house to the cabinet. And from the cabinet out it's all grey pvc with at least thirty percent spares. Again, we don't want any reason to arise for cutting the drive or messing up the landscaping after we're done.
Here's what we did today.
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Saturday morning I cut the drive, placed a shishkeepotfull of pvc conduit and backfilled. A couple of hours later two inches of rain fell in about forty five minutes.
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The other side
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Saturday I'd also gotten about forty feet of trench done at the house end before the rain hit.
So this morning I started off with a trench full of water. This is severe clay. Notice the size of the clumps from the bucket.
I'm using my home made back hoe attachment. The bucket is about ten inches. So immediately of course the clay makes a home in the bucket. And from then on it's like I'm digging with a flat pointed shovel.
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I wanted at least thirty six inch cover for the conduit.
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This was the torture test for the attachment. I'd used it successfully in sandy soil. But in this clay it got it's workout.
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The rain that might hit somewhere in the metroplex decided Wylie would be a nice place to visit. So I had to put the conduit in where I could and then backfill in a hurry.
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