You guys helped me with re-wiring my chandelier and fixing the trim on my house, which was great. Now I have a new one!
A tree branch came down on the old lamp post in front of my house and wrecked it. I decided to replace it, which is not a big deal, I’ve done one before. Where are the complications arose was…
they used a really large wheel of concrete to set it, with a radius of around 18 inches at best estimate
on one side, a massive tree root has grown over the concrete
The rat bastards who put up this post ran the Romex through the concrete (you can faintly see it at the bottom)
all the screws at the top have rusted completely, and I haven’t been able to drill them out. That said, the whole post has snapped in half now, and I have half the post and wire off to the side ( not pictured)
So, questions.
could I like rent a jackhammer to break up that concrete, and would it compromise the Romex if I did?
what can I use to cut the metal post to free the wire above the ground? I see there are circular saw blades that will cut metal, I’ve never used one.
alternately, maybe I could cut the Romex there at the base, dig a trench about 7 feet uphill to free it up, and just put the lamppost in a new place…. and bury all this other shit. Or I could cut the Romex there and splice it to a new section? I really do not like the sound of that, but that’s because I’ve never done it.
Is the Romex in a conduit through the concrete and/or the ground? (I really hope it’s not just exposed buried wire.) What is the conduit material and what condition is it in?
At what depth does the concrete start and how thick is it?
I’d probably use a sawzall or angle grinder to cut the post. I think those will be easier to work with close to the ground.
Oh, they just buried it right in the concrete. I haven’t seen anything that exciting construction-wise in a while.
It got dark before we could start digging around the sides of the concrete to get an idea of how thick it is. I know it’s got to be pretty thick, I weigh 280 pounds and when I leaned on the lamp post, not only did it not budge, but the whole thing snapped. More digging will take place tomorrow morning.
Hmmm, I don’t own a sawzall, maybe it’s time to invest in another Ryobi tool……
Cute. First thing you should do is pull the breaker and detach the Romex cable. It’s waste and you aren’t going to reuse it, so just cut it off and leave it buried or pull it up.
If you want to put another post in the same place you need to excavate the concrete. You don’t want to try to manipulate a large ragged ball of concrete with a big tube sticking out of it but a rented jackhammer should make quick work of it. If you are okay with putting the post somewhere adjacent to it, just get an angle grinder (or a sawsall will work if the gauge of the post isn’t too thick), cut it down to the ground, and cover it over with soil.
Put in the new post, run conduit for the wire, mount and hook up the light. It’s a good weekend project.
If this is regular Romex (non-metallic sheathing), then it’s out of code in the US no matter what kind of conduit it is or isn’t buried in. Wet conditions (which underground conduit is considered) requires THWN (Thermoplastic Heat and Water resistant Nylon-coated) wire. I think you’re in Germany so I don’t know what your codes allow, but it’s worth considering why those codes exist even if they don’t apply to you.
So really, the best thing is to dig up the wire entirely and replace it. I won’t blame you if you use what’s already there, but at a minimum I don’t see any way you can keep the wire currently embedded in concrete intact. I think you’re stuck splicing at least that (which is problematic in an underground/wet location).
As for a jackhammer: if it’s really old or poorly mixed concrete…maybe? I suspect you’ll have trouble breaking it into manageable chunks. If it has any thickness, I can see the hammer just driving pieces deeper into the ground. I think you’re either pulling it out with a backhoe, or as you suggested, burying it. Unless you need to have the post in the same location, it would be an easy decision for me to bury it.
And maybe that’s a solution to the splicing challenge? If the new location is a few feet closer along the wire run, you might be able to save enough to run the wire partially into the new post where at least you are splicing in a dry environment. But again, using the existing wire isn’t the right way to do this. Electricity, wet ground, and a metal pole are not something to mess around with.
Sawzalls are great. There’s a reason they’re called that. I use mine more than all my other saws combined.
At least here in Florida in the USA there is a Romex-like product that is approved for direct burial in wet environments, no conduit required:
I doubt the existing wire is that. But if legal in the OP’s area, this or similar stuff would certainly simplify running wire to the new location. Which also adds the requirement to locate the building exit point for the wire. Which might itself be another unhappy non-compliant surprise.
ISTM unless there is some deeply compelling reason to need the new lamp post in the old location, I’d put it literally anywhere else in the yard to avoid the hassle of removing the old one. Simply cut the existing post off as flush as is reasonable, bury the stump and concrete under a small hill of soil, perhaps plant a small shrub on top, and forget the damned thing ever existed.
Only needing to cut the post off 2 or 3" above ground, you’ll find a sawzall will solve that in less time than it took to take the pix of the problem. Once you own or can borrow or rent one.
Just note that UF-B has a bare ground wire, which isn’t allowed in some circumstances like wiring for an underground pool. I have no idea if that’s a concern in this case.
The gray jacket on the romex makes me suspect it is type UF aka ‘Underground Feeder’, and it IS legit for direct burial in wet locations. Just barely, and you never want to bury a splice*… The benefit here is that the outer insulation jacket is much tougher than good old everyday indoor romex, and has a somewhat better chance of surviving whatever battering you have to attempt nearby. The otherwise good advice to run new conduit and wire avoids mentioning the second weekend project of getting that conduit cleanly into your basement once you’ve trenched across the yard.
*although there are legit connectors to splice wires several hundred feet down a well to drive the submersed pump, and I’d certainly trust that for a lamppost bulb…
Figure out how the cable was run. It might be in conduit now that that you could pull a a new one through. If not you’ll have a more digging to do. Find where it exits the house either through a basement wall or if higher up the conduit should be visible from outside. If you can’t find conduit then you’re going to have a trench to dig.
You also don’t need to break up or remove the concrete footing. You may not want to if it there conduit running into it. You can pull a new cable through that and mount a new post on the existing concrete or build the concrete up higher over it to support a new post.
Step 1 is still find out it there’s conduit there.
The suggestion of a reciprocating saw was very helpful, and I was able to free up the wire and remove most of the post.
It is indeed a UF type wire, and it’s pretty evident that they ran the wire appropriately through the side of the post, but then filled up the cement way past the entry point.
My choices are still the same, but I have a little more information anyway. I can…
Splice in a new section of Romex, and put the lamp post right next to where the old one was. Or even hire an electrician to do this, but it is very, very hard to get electricians around here to do jobs like this, when they can work on new homes instead or replace easy light switches, and most of them charge a minimum of 200 bucks to do work.
Rent a jackhammer, and see if I can break up the concrete without hurting the wire.
Bury the whole thing and forget about it. I kind of hate to do this, because I bought a lamp post like 15 years ago, but it’s an option.
If you like tools, jackhammers are fun. Unless price or extra effort is a concern, you’re no worse off if you rent one and it doesn’t work. I’d say give it a try.
If you’ve got a foot or more of wire poking out the top of your stump, you’re golden. Do an underground compatible splice to more of the same sort of wire, and put in the new post a couple or few feet away. Then just bury your old concrete, stump, and splice.
Be darn sure the wire isn’t able to scrape against the sharp edge of the stump. In fact if practical I’d go back and saw that remaining stump down to half that height. Then make a protective cover, maybe a hunk of plastic or styrofoam wedged into the stump that will hold the wire away from the steump edge once it’s buried. Whatever you use, make sure it’s something that won’t deteriorate much over time, and is non-conductive. Plastic good, rubber OK, wood useless.
ETA: Downside to jackhammer is the possibility to damage the wire. Plus now you have to dispose of X lbs of concrete and then need to fill the resulting hole with something else. IMO easier to leave all that in place. But it might be fun.
It depends on the concrete but from the posted picture and general hack-job of installation, I’d guess that they got the cheapest Quikrete knockoff, did some minimal job of mixing in sand, and poured it all down in a wet hole without checking consistency. The biggest problem with ‘loose’ concrete is you start spalling off small chunks and keep having to excavate them to get down to the solid material. Alternatively, the o.p. could just saw the old pole down to the base and cover it up with loose gravel and sod, but big chunks of barely subertacnean material have a way of working themselves back up over time.
If you don’t know the condition of the rest of the buried cable you’re just buying yourself another potential problem down the road. When you do an installation project right the first time, you save your future self (or the sucker who buys/inherits the property from you) so much time and frustration. I’d spend the hundred bucks to get a trencher, lay conduit at least 12” deep (or whatever is required by code), run THWN-2 cable, and never have to think about it again until the end of time.
It might be! And since I’ve never used a jackhammer, I thought why not? and rented one, $63 in total. I only jackhammered for about 30 minutes, but good news, it was indeed fun to smash the shit out of all that stuff, but bad news, as careful as I tried to be, the Romex inside was in bad shape. Still, I was able to save it where it entered the concrete and then a bit more, so I’ve got something to work with.
You know, I agree with this in concept, and that’s my usual approach to fixing things. But this house is more than 250 years old, and what I’ve learned is that thing also unravel here sometimes when you start taking them apart. I did try to trace the original line anyway just to puzzle it out, but it’s part of a popular circuit that winds up and over the breezeway, and which has at least one line punched through the sill (which I assume is about as old as the house). I don’t feel a strong desire to start unwinding all that. Also, the thing about trenching is, this part of the country turns up a LOT of granite (including boulders and old pieces of wall), and there is also the 60-foot tree in front of the house right next to the post that has sent decades and decades of dense, thick roots out.
So…I’m going to splice it, and I am about to go out and dig a new hole, and my guess is I’m going to hit a lot of granite just in that little space. (hmmm, maybe I should have kept the jackhammer)
Glad you had fun jackhammering. Probably a shitty line of work though.
I’m totally on board with the idea that the older the installation, the less you want to touch that doesn’t absolutely positively need to be touched. I have no experience with 250yo houses, but the idea of DIYing on one scares the crap outta me.
Woof, that was harder than I expected. Note to self: old Romex is less a flexible sheath and more a fossilized carapace. Still, I was able to get the wires cleaned, stripped and joined, and while it involved at least a dozen trips to and from the house to switch the power off and then on, it all did work out in the end. I was also very lucky in that I did hit two large granite chunks on the sides of my new hole, but there was enough room to work around them, and I was able to seat the pole properly.
Thanks to everyone for your help!
(lol these were the only chandelier-base bulbs I had, kinda bright)
