A friend was complaining last night about how major repairs often come in
clusters, when you can least afford them. The latest: It seems the AC wire
to her freestanding garage has rotted away. The installation's probaby 50
years old. The BX cable comes out of the ground right at the garage, and
there's no indication of it having been run through any sort of protective
pipe. It enters the house through concrete block, below ground level. The
garage is only 18 feet from the house, and although the ground is very easy
to dig, the wire has to pass below a sidewalk to reach the house.

The sidewalk is adding to her nightmare because she's thinking that removing
any soil at all (to run the new wire) will cause some pavement to collapse,
so she'll end up needing masonry work, too.

Anyone know what's really involved in replacing a wire like this? In a
perfect world, there would be no sidewalk or other annoyances, I'd install
the wire in the appropriate pipe, there'd be birds and flowers and everybody
would live happily every after with free beer. But...ya know....