ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area "Inground" Receptacles

I got a guy who wants receptacles along his drive way for his xmas lights (the driveway is lined with pine trees).

He wants them to be inset, if you will, so that he can run over them with his lawn mower and not have to weed eat them...is that even possible. Do they make an "underground box" with some sort of flush weatherprrof cover? There has to be a way to do underground receptacles, huh?

Any suggestions for materials I should look into?

They did this in a local city park for the same reason. Weatherproof receptacles were installed on the sides of open bottom precast concrete hand holes. They purchased 2 covers for each hand hole, one was the cover that was left on when the receptacles were not in use, the second had a notch for the cords and was used only when the cords were in use.
Don

I would think that a good base of peagravel in hole under these concrete boxes would be a good idea so lawn sprinklers and rain can very quickly drain off and not fill the box.

So - do they make a plastic type of these hand holes? I wonder where I should look to find this stuff - the supply house I usually go to doesn't have anything like that.

Industrial supplier maybe?

maintenanceguy,
Good point. I think that they did use a gravel base below the open bottom box to create a "french drain".

Happi_Man
Strongwell is one manufacturer of these type of boxes. There are others. I don't think that a plastic box would be strong enough to stand up to the weather and lawn mowing.

Don

[This message has been edited by resqcapt19 (edited 04-06-2003).]

I can't imagine a undergroud recept. in Maine. Pea gravel will drain water except when its frozen and we get rain even during the winter months. The eguipment I work on is sometimes placed in holes with 10 feet of pea stone under it and in the winter its not unusual for the manhole to be solid full of ice even with 10 feet of gravel underneath it.

Christy Concrete makes concrete and fibrelyte boxes that would work.

I personally don't like the idea of installing receptacles this way since no matter how good of drainage you have they will become submerged at times.

Curt

[This message has been edited by caselec (edited 04-06-2003).]

If you really want to be sure that there is not a water problem, you could use the plugs and receptacles made by Woodhead , or Leviton , and others. These devices meet NEMA 6 which permits temporary immersion, and some even meet 6P which is prolonged immersion.
Don