Need tricks and tips using a fish tape, lhc_cj7
My 2 cents:
You've had enough tricks already, haven't you. An inadequate job that also passed inspection? Bought and paid for....? What you now have is a very difficult job to try and rectify with no support from the supposed expert.
I'm not here to criticize you but to try and inform that "you learn as you burn ", this way of learning is often the most expensive, but never forgotten.
Onto the problem, of trying to get a ground wire installed or just getting a fishtape trough an existing conduit.
I went and looked over your post on the install before commenting, so as to offer the best remedy, not just random thoughts or suggestions. I will offer the best suggestions first, as I would do on the job . But after reviewing your actual install my opinion changed.
1. Use a round (nylon) fishtape. They are expensive, but the round profile guides itself around obstructions and turns much better than a flat coiled steel tape, even if it has a round metal leader section.
2. Pull the wires out, with a pulling rope attached to the end. Attach the additional conductor and re-pull in.
After install thread review.
3. Put away your fish tape, and connect it for a safe 3 wire installation. This was briefly mentioned earlier by wyliesdiesels near the end of the original thread. 3 wire feeders were accepted practice for many years but are no longer accepted, but is a lot safer than what you have now, ungrounded equipment. Install the neutral bonding screws in both panels neutral bar to give your sub-panel enclosure a ground connection. For all intensive purposes your ground rod is useless as a equipment ground.
Reasons for this line of thinking.
4. If you cant get a tape through, wire installation will be almost impossible. Especially after looking at the install photos. After looking at the size of the boxes, the conduit routing, splicing in each box and type of wire, there are too many things working against you.
5, Five 90deg bends in the underground conduit is one more than allowed by code. Too many bends to replace or install the wire without damage or undue force. That's the reason for the rule allowing 360 degree maximum (4, 90's). The underground should have failed inspection if one was even done, before the trench was covered.
6, The neat bending you mentioned with a rosebud is the next issue. PVC conduit is to be heated in an oven or blanket for uniform bending. Airtight plugs are used at the ends of the conduit before heating to prevent the pipe from constricting while being bent. The internal air pressure that builds up pressurizes the pipe to help prevent it from flattening out when being bent and cooled. The 2" field bend shown in your photo definitely looks flattened out to me, and I'm sure the others were similar. 1 1/5" is the smallest I ever try to bend without the air plugs, 2" and larger collapses even with, even heating.
7, The style of wire you used is "tri-plexed" conductors that are twisted together. This makes for a larger overall bundle diameter than individual straight conductors and much stiffer to restrict movement. The spiral shape of the bundle also tends to deflect the fish tape in a spiral pattern around the bundle. This will give you the Chinese finger-grip effect on the bundle when trying to pull the new conductor in.
8, The tiny boxes with no surplus wire or room to maneuver is a problem. Again the reason for the code rule of min 6x the raceway diameter 2" x 6 = 12" min box size.
Code section:314.28
(2) Angle or U Pulls, or Splices. Where splices or where
angle or U pulls are made, the distance between each raceway
entry inside the box or conduit body and the opposite
wall of the box or conduit body shall not be less than six
times the metric designator (trade size) of the largest raceway
in a row. This distance shall be increased for additional
entries by the amount of the sum of the diameters of all other
raceway entries in the same row on the same wall of the box.
Each row shall be calculated individually, and the single row
that provides the maximum distance shall be used.
9, Your steel splice boxes and thinwall conduit sections are not grounded. If a short were to occur anywhere, say in one of your splices, the boxes and conduit would become live. This constitutes a serious electrocution and fire hazard were it to occur. This metal, enclosing the wiring must be properly grounded if you elect to go with the 3 wire feeder as a stop gap solution, for your own safety
10, Service entrance cable (SE) used in the interior wall. As others suggested previously, you would need to replace this too, thus requiring opening up the wall again.
11, Given that all of the above confront the installation, repair to code would necessitate almost the entire installation being redone. Making it safer would require bonding both panels neutral bars for effective, if not code approved equipment grounding connection, and running a properly sized ground wire to the metal conduits and boxes. Even this would require opening the wall again.
Food for thought, depending on where you sit, consider the following.
If this was done for hire from a licensed professional and inspected, I would be complaining to the city or county that they are sending out rubber stamp inspectors, that allow shady contractors to install an unsafe and nonconforming installations. And get them to pressure the contractor to make it right.
If you and your buddy did this with someone else's license, then you should man up and fix it right, even if it got a rubber stamp. When something goes wrong the insurance company is going to be looking to someone to blame. At a bare minimum get the conduit, boxes, and subpanel loadcenter enclosure connected to ground, the real ground in your service panel, not some rod beaten into dry soil.
End of 2 cents, for what it's worth. Ω
