On Mon, 04 Dec 2006 03:05:48 GMT, "Tomes" wrote:

One thing that I did when I buried an outside line some time ago (and it was
18 inches down here in NJ with an electric and a cable line [cable while I
was at it]) was to put a pressure treated 1x4 on top of the wires so that if
anyone ever dug down they would hit the wood instead of cutting through the
wire. I also laid the wire on a few inches of sand down there for drainage.
This all might have been required (it was about 15 years ago...).

I did something similar with my buried electrical line. I put a few
inches of some decorative gravel (I wanted to get rid of it) above the
conduit containing the wires. Digging down to it will alert you, but
won't prevent you from getting to the wire. It also provides drainage
around the conduit.

Putting my underground-rated cable inside conduit at the local
code-required 24-inch depth and placing the gravel above it was going
well beyond what was required, but I plan to be here a while, and I
think it will prevent some future heartache.

JT