[Question] Installing house wire in conduit under ground

[ians]

Anyone actually do this?

Good or bad practise?

Do you install cables directly in the ground or do you install conduits with twin+e ... surfix ... standard cat 5/6/7 or RJ59 cables.

Have you experienced problem with any of the cables in conduits underground.

[AndyD]

Conduit offers no additional mechanical protection, I always use steel wire armoured cable. By the time you have the cost of the flat twin plus the conduit and fittings and the added labour time of assembling conduit and fishing through cable it works out cheaper for me to use SWA cable and it's a far superior finished job.

Conduit nearly always ends up waterlogged if it's buried externally because even the slightest ground settlement causes it to crack and separate even if it's glued and this means the one advantage it should have where new cables should be able to be fished through in future is always gone. Conduit won't offer protection even against a casually used spade, no protection against animals (porcupines or cape moles) and it's ugly as shit wherever it's visible..... apart from that I love buried conduit

[ians]

What I have is that no matter what you install in the conduit ... be it twin+e ... cat5/6/7 or coax ... the result is the same ...it fails.

I have always used the best quality solution .. .but over time trying to keep up with the market ... I have been using cheaper solutions to get the job ... which results in failed equipment ... not a bad thing because it creates more work ... people understand that everything in this day and age is rubbish quality ... if the product quality is good generally the service or support is crap (Hilti is a good example of this)