ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Salt Water Rated?

I spent half Saturday and all day Sunday troubleshooting and temporarily repairing a problem with a service feeder.

Who's got it better than me?

The electrician that did the wiring for this apartment complex put all the meters in one of two buildings. All the feeders for the second building were run underground to each apartment load center.

The tenant was complaining that the power would go out in the whole apartment ramdomly. I met with the building super and found that the main for that particular apartment was tripping. I tested everything I could think of and found that the wiring going from the building with the main to the other building had a high impedence short from phase a to ground. From time to time it would trip the apartment main.

These apartments are 100yds. from the open bay. The conductors used to feed underground had markings on it (Type HH). I probably can assume this is RHH but it did not say it on the wire.

Question is... Can HH or RHH handle the rigors of contact with salt water. Is that what caused this problem? Maybe a Knick in the wire in conjuction with the salt caused the problem? We won't know until it gets dug up but I was wondering if RHH could handle salt?

Any underground run is considered a wet location, and the conductors must be rated as such.
Type RH or RHH is for dry locations only. Type RHW is rated for wet locations...S