Best Techniques In Conduit Wiring And Laying Of Underground Cables For Electrification
The difference between the conduit and underground wiring from surface wiring is just the method each type is being done.
Conduit wiring in summary is a method that involves hiding the wires same thing as underground wiring with the exception that the latter will have the cables buried under the ground such that it wouldn’t have any form of human contact.
Meanwhile, the surface wiring is the ancient method of wiring electricity, a method that involves wiring and leaving the wires visible to people.
If you want to know more about these types of wiring please read the article on the electrical engineering category page.
The need to control and wiring methods used by the electrification industries has become a necessity following the continuous incidents of fire outbreaks arising from wrong wiring due to inexperience by the technician involved.
The problems associated with these types of the wiring had been listed in a previous post under this category or you can read them by clicking this link.
Conduit and underground wiring is a modern method of electrification but it still has its limitations and problems which do make it look as though it is not better after all, but one must consider the continuous variations in the number of fire incidents coming from surface wiring to that of conduit and underground.
Conduit and underground wiring are better than the surface method notwithstanding its initial cost, the safety of the people remains a paramount issue in any engineering work today. Many engineers had tried in the past to come up with more secure means of handling electricity to serve the need of humans without any record of negativity to that purpose but later realized that such would not be possible.
In other words, there is no way electricity will have a 0% negative effect on humans counting shocks from household appliances, sparks that cause the burning of buildings, pressing iron that may damage clothes and so many other effects.
Hence, the engineers are only making efforts to ensure that the possibilities of these effects are reduced to the lowest minimum but 0% may not be guaranteed.
The invention of conduit and underground wiring is just another means of reducing the negative effects, such that the wires carrying the electric voltage will not be accessible by anyone either by mistake or not.
One major disadvantage of this method is the fact that more accessories are required than the previous or ancient style of surface method.
We shall use this medium to deliberate on various ways conduit wiring and underground cable laying or wiring can be enhanced for better advantages.
According to my experience in the recent conduit wiring and laying of underground cables I had discovered so many ways in which this method can be improved upon to enhance the function and safety of humans around the area as well as create a platform for easy maintenance.
These points I will be highlighting shall be discussed properly to see how easy being implemented in conduit wiring could be of great help.
JUNCTION CONTROL
Every electrician or electrical engineer knows what junction box control is.
In the normal surface wiring, the junction box is simply a box in the form of plastic where all the wires linking to different areas within a particular number are brought together.
For example, if one is wiring a three-bedroom apartment, the wires of the three-room are brought together to a particular bigger wire that carries the voltage from the power source and shares it equally with the three rooms wires.
So in that case, the point those wires were joined together is what is referred to as a junction box.
The junction box serves a lot of purposes besides the distribution of voltages because most electrical faults are mostly located at the junction box, therefore it becomes a necessity to discuss this box’s relevance to electrification extensively;
It distributes voltage to various wires connected to it.
It serves as a contact point for wires hence a location to easily trace faults
It helps to reduce electric shocks since it will be covered with a plastic called a junction box
It makes wiring appear neat since all the wires are brought together and covered with plastic.
So in electrification, it can be said that the higher the number of junction boxes are, the lesser the risk of spark in the box.
The reason behind this theory is that more junction boxes reduce the loads on other junction boxes since only a few wires are connected, and only a few distributions of voltage have to be made in each box thereby reducing the causes of sparks in each junction box and enhancing safety.
Therefore, when considering junction box in the aspect of conduit wiring it will reveal that more junction box is needed in this method of wiring since it is the only place accessible to the electrician or anyone wishing to make any adjustment or trace a fault.
There is a need to create as many junction boxes as possible while making conduit electrification so that the faults can easily be traced to individual boxes.
While in the case of underground wiring the case is the same. Consider laying a cable below the ground to about a distance of 20km without having junction boxes at some distance.
In that case, any event of bridging or faults along that distance cannot be traced except by digging out the whole cable or wire before the fault can be ratified.
Therefore it is necessary to have junction boxes located at some distances away for the full distance.
DETECTORS
Having created junction boxes the next thing to do is to fix detectors at each junction box so that any irregularity can be notified earlier by the detector for immediate action. The popular detectors used in electrification works are smoke detectors, heat detectors, electric spark detectors, etc.
The need to have these detectors connected to various strategic locations is to that anyone within would become aware of any fault from electric wiring.
CIRCUIT BREAKERS & FUSES
Yes, these are popular words used in the electrical engineering field which refers to devices attached to electrical lines to help terminate the flow of voltage in the event of a sudden increase in the voltage supply for a particular range.
Their function in electricity is very important in securing home appliances and industrial machines which do not need any supply of voltage above the recommended voltage in their function.
Hence any sudden increase in the voltage supply could damage the machine or household appliances, therefore the fuse and circuit breakers terminate or shut off the voltage supply in such a case.
So it is very important to have it in any junction that supplies voltage to valuable household appliances or industrial machines.
SEPARATE INSULATION
This is among the major things which must be put in place if safety and durability in the electric lines have to be ensured.
In conduit wiring, there is a need to ensure that the LIVE wire and the NEUTRAL wire have separate insulators before inserting them in concretes or blocks.
This is to ensure that even in the event of overheating and insulators burnt off that contact will still not be established between the two wires which could lead to sparks and fire outbreaks.
While in the case of underground wiring the same thing applies except that its insulators will not only be separated but will be sealed very well to avoid the possibility of any water or fluid having access to the wire, this is to avoid shock when people move on that ground barefooted.
METER
Meter is good to be added to the junction boxes of underground cables so that any serious fault can easily be identified by just comparing the meter reading of one junction box to the next junction box that follows it.
A resistance meter can be used to ratify any electrical fault, so having it for electrical connections fault ratification will do a lot.
