Skipping Ahead - Outdoor Electrical Upgrades

Wow, months since the last post!  Thanks for checking back and not dismissing Dan's Wood forever!  Life has been busy and exciting over the past few months.  Rather than try and get caught up on the progress in order, I'm just going to skip ahead so you can see where the action is at now!

The original house was fed by a 100 amp service fed from wires above ground.  The pole sitting in front of the shed was ugly and an eyesore and beyond that, the new house required 200 amp for the added square footage.  So, step 1 was to hire the local utility company to install a new transformer closer to the house that we would bring the new larger wire to from the house, underground.  Rather than trench the line in 40" deep and tear up the yard, they decided to use a special underground boring machine to install it underground without ruining the yard.

Equipment Showing Up

Vacuum Truck 

Underground Boring Machine

Conduit Reel - this is installed using the underground boring machine and the actual electrical wires are pulled through it.

Trench at the Electrical Pole - You can see the red conduit sticking up!

And, here is the finished product.  After the utility company installed the transformer, we installed the wood meter board.

And, the end result is that now once we install the wires to the house, this ugly pole and wires can go away!

 A conduit also needed to be installed underground between the house and the new transformer.  The utility company doesn't do this scope of work, so we rented a trenching machine and went to work!

The start of the trench was challenging - we encountered all sorts of debris that had to be hand removed.

Stay tuned for more updates!