Frozen four inch buried conduit

[LushMonkey]

I'm working on some buried conduit and it is frozen. Have managed to break free some of the ice, now there is suction at other end when using a vacume. However I cannot get a bag or a fish tape through all the way gets hung up part way through. I have tried antifreeze was wondering if anyone has any suggestions other than digging them up?

 

[Marvo]

Is the conduit 4 inches in diameter or is it buried 4 inches deep? How long is it and do you know how much of its length is frozen?

 

[ian.settle1]

Where the hell are you that it's frozen Antarctica?

 

[7029 dave]

North pole?.

 

[camerabloke]

in a freezer in tescos?

 

[LushMonkey]

Edmonton AB, Canada. Four inch pipe buried a good six feet down. Its for the service coming off the transformer to switchgear. Gonna try a Herman Nelson blow some hot air down um and suck on the other end with the vacume. Hopefully the hot air flowing will melt it away

 

[Marvo]

Ah that explains a lot. I think your method will work as long as some air can pass through the pipe. If the ice has made a completely solid plug then I fear you may be SOL.

 

[jaypp]

you'll probably want to pump melt-water out. If you blow warm air through a pipe into the duct, run a tube within that to stop it freezing on it's way out. Is the duct cable free at present?

 

[Knobhead]

This place gets more bizzare by the day.

 

[Engineer54]

So a pretty big conduit, and it's at quite a depth too, more like a duct in fact. Either way perhaps this time when you have finished and blown/pumped out any standing water, you'll duct seal the ends up... lol!!

 

[benji]

last time i used conduit that size had to use CHICO A & CHICO X to seal them but that was for bio.hazardous install

 

[Engineer54]

Any electrical ducting that goes underground should have a duct sealing system applied...

 

[LushMonkey]

No its nothing like a duct, its four inch PVC conduit. They have bell ends and you use PVC glue to close the ends. It pretty much melts the pipes together. You use this when you need to run pipes underground. But hey can't say I've ever seen an engineer running pipe

 

[LushMonkey]

There not for bio hazard, installing a 600 amp 208 service running two parallel 300kcmil feeds from transformer

 

[benji]

only stated that we used it for a bio. job and it was 4in steel conduit from weatland (usa) 4in plastic in uk is called a duct

 

[LushMonkey]

@benji I can see how that came across as me being short with ya, considering the message the preceded it. That was not how I intended it. I have never heard that the term duct used before but I haven't worked outside of Canada. The only time I have used 4" EMT was for security system in a RCMP office, and for fiber optic cable.

 

[wozz]

From my extensive research on this (watching ice pilots and gold rush) i think you can thaw anything out with a herman nelson. :cheesy:

 

[dan86]

They have bell ends

ACtual lol!

 

[Engineer54]

No its nothing like a duct, its four inch PVC conduit. They have bell ends and you use PVC glue to close the ends. It pretty much melts the pipes together. You use this when you need to run pipes underground. But hey can't say I've ever seen an engineer running pipe

Hmmm, the project i'm working on now has probably miles of underground ducting for both LV and MV distribution cables. Most are multi tier runs with 3m X 2m deep underground concrete manholes for pulling and change of direction. All plastic ducting is glued together during construction, but that's not duct sealing, duct sealing refers the open ends!! ALL sections of ducting (or if you like conduit) will have its ends sealed against water penetration and fauna ...for obvious reasons. Empty ducts will be sealed by just a purpose made, close fitting internal end cap. Cable filled duct, will be sealed by a suitable made for purpose compound system...

By the way, if your pipe system has ''Bell Ends'' for ease of pulling from any angle, it would be deemed as a cable duct, ...even ''Stateside''!! Oh and there was me thinking that Canada now uses ''Metric'' sized cable, rather than the totally outdated and isolated AWG and it's derivatives....
Are you still distributing 208V up there in coldest Canada, thought it was all 240V now, in both the States and Canada??

 

[LushMonkey]

Congrats have never heard the term ducting other than tin bashers. And your thinking is partially right. Code books are all in metric but that's the only place it is used. 240 is only used in houses everywhere else is three phase