On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:38:16 -0500, stanley baer
wrote:

I have found several hundred feet of 8 AWG wire that I would like to
use to bring electricity to my shop that is 200' from my house. At the
moment I use a 3ph propane powered generator but it is expensive to run.

I plan to run the wire through a buried plastic conduit and have enough
wire to be able to have two of each of the power carrying conducters and
two ground conducters.

What will the current capacity be of this setup? (I realize it is
probably not up to code)

stan
Stan,
The lowest rating for 8 gauge copper single wire is 60 amps. With 3
wires in a cable that drops to 40 amps. But, you should be using wire
marked THWN, or THW. The W stands for wet. If wire is going
underground, even in conduit, it needs to be rated for wet conditions.
THWN wire in 8 gauge is rated at 50 amps for three wires in a cable
at 86 degrees F. Voltage drop has to be considered. It needs to be
less than 2%. For 8 gauge wire that's about 17 amps max @ 240 volts
for 200 feet of wire. And with four 8 gauge wires the minimum conduit
size for THW and THWN is 3/4. All the preceeding info is from the
"Pocket Ref" written by Thomas J. Glover. Don't exceed these numbers
if you don't know what you're doing. And, keeping the wiring to code
is a good way to avoid electrocution and other hazards. I wouldn't
wire it in a way that doesn't meet code. You shouldn't either. Nor
should you trust the specs I listed without checking them out with a
reliable source.
ERS