About a year ago I buried some aluminum 2-2-2 rated for underground sevice. It is about 100 ft to the shop from the service source which is the breaker in the house box. I buried at 18" and have had no problems until about a day ago when I notice it dropped one of the hots and I only had 110v in the shop. I double and triple checked all breakers and connections. I found that one of the hot wires somewere underground is no longer conducting. I also eliminated the possibility of a bad breaker by switching the two hots and rechecking with a volt meter. That same wire stays dead no matter what I switch around or do. What is strange though is the fact that on the good wire out in the shop it reads 120v and the "bad" one reads anywere from 50v to 100v but as soon as I put any load to it, it drops to 0v. I dont understand where the 50v-100v is comming from. Has the voltage went to ground? why hasn't the breaker thrown itself? And also how do I find the bad spot? is there any tricks? I tryed to be real careful when I filled the dirt back in and used my bare hands for the begining of the fill in so I would not cut the wires with the shovel. Any help would be appreciated. I am not looking forward to redoing this job. Any ideas on fixing this would be welcomed. Thanks
