HerHusband ) said...

When we wired our house a couple of years ago, I installed a few runs of
1/2" pvc conduit from the panel down to our crawlspace in hopes of making
future upgrades easier. Now I want to run power out to a small shed using
8/3 wire. The 8/3 Romex just fits inside the 1/2" conduit and will work
great if that short section of conduit is acceptable.

If it "just fits" you may be overstuffing the conduit. Maximum fill for
conduit is 53% of its cross sectional area for one conductor, but when
there is more than one conductor, it is only 40%. I suspect that pulling
a piece of Romex would count as more than one conductor (this limit is
from the CEC, but I suspect similar restrictions in the NEC as another
poster mentioned the 53% limit while quoting the NEC).

What if I strip the outer cable insulation and feed the individual wires
through the conduit (with a cable clamp at the bottom of the conduit)?

This is a viable solution, and one I've used in several instances.
All you have to do is put a fitting on the end of the conduit that
would be used to attach it to a junction box, and get a female-to-female
pipe coupling to couple the threaded end of the fitting to a threaded
cable clamp. Works very nicely.

By the way, I have free application called "Conduit Calculator" for
calculating conductor fill in conduit. It's available at http://daxack.ca

--
Calvin Henry-Cotnam
"Never ascribe to malice what can equally be explained by incompetence."
- Napoleon
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