On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 22:40:21 -0700, Bob F wrote:

On 6/3/2020 9:34 PM, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 3 Jun 2020 20:54:48 -0700, Bob F
wrote:

On 6/3/2020 12:45 PM, Todesco wrote:
10 years ago I installed a post lamp in the front of my property.Â* The
house builder left a 2" plastic conduit (maybe 100 feet) from the house
to the area where the post light was to be installed.Â* I put a 4" square
plastic box at each end of the conduit as ground level.Â* The house end
is no problem as it is in the asphalt driveway.Â* At the house end, I
connected an underground "romex" to a breaker on the panel.Â* At the
other end, I connected 2 underground "romex", one to the post light and
one to an outlet, some 25' away.Â* Through the years, the outside box has
disappeared and I can't find it.Â* I've tried raking up the leaf mulch.
Nope.Â* I've also tried one of the non touch voltage testers.Â* Nope. I've
tried a tracing unit connecting a signal to the power line and snooping
with the other end.Â* Nope!Â*Â* I don't have a metal detector. Not sure
where to go from here.Â* Any great ideas out there?

If there's any chance that the wire conductors are in contact with the
ground, you could connect the wires in the breaker box together to a hot
breaker,

I think you should put the current through a load first. A 150 watt
lightbulb or a 1100 watt heater.

and then probe the ground near where you think is is with a
volt or mA meter set to AC and connected with a wire to the power
ground. You should see some voltage or current as you probe close to the
wire end. I used this method to find a break on the cable from my
fathers house to his shop.


When I did it, It was a 240V line on a breaker. The leakage is not all
that much, at least in the dry ground on that occasion. It certainly was
not blowing the breaker.

Those issues will all be gone with the 2020 code. That wire will be on
a GFCI and it will trip with the slightest ground contact. You will
just be digging the whole thing up and replacing it. They removed the
"120v 15&20 amp" language and apply 210.8 GFCI requirements to all
outlets (receptacle, lighting or otherwise) for 120 and 240v circuits,
at any amperage. Yes that means the dryer will be on a GFCI along with
any 240v equipment in the garage or outside (or any other place that
calls for GFCI) along with the 120v stuff that already should be.
When you add that to the AFCI requirements, there will not be many
standard breakers left in a residential panel.