The electrical installation wasn't too bad. Luckily I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering so that I understand how to work with electricity. However, they didn't teach me anything about residential wiring in school. So I had to figure out how to do the outdoor wiring by myself and I did this by studying the building code which is online, looking at what electrical devices that were available at the building stores, asking questions, looking at examples in the neighborhood and watching youtube.
The electrical project involved putting in a light, a receptacle and power to the boat lift motor. The first problem I encounter was that the motor came with a long 30' flexible plastic sheathed cable bundle that connects to the lift control box. I'm not sure but I don't think the inspector would like the cable bundle to be out in the elements exposed. So I had to figure out how to put the cable in schedule 80 electrical conduit. After looking at the neighbors installation I decided to use a gray flexible plastic conduit to interface with the motor. See picture below.
Below is view of the flexible conduit coming from the motor and attaching to the rigid pvc conduit which then finds it way to the control box down by the dock.
In addition to the motor switch I also installed some out door lights on boat house. I actually attempted this first before the motor wiring. I first fastened the gray conduit with two 90 degree pull elbows and the light fixture to the boat lift. Then I attempted to pull the wire through using my brand new fish tape. I had to pull on the fish tape with all my might. In fact I had just barely got the wire through before the fish tape broke free of the wire. My fish tape real was all distorted and bent and almost got ruined by this wire pull attempt, Needless to say I was very worried about the 50' wire pull I was going to have to do to get the wire to the house from the boat lift.
I knew I was doing something wrong so I started looking on youtube about wire pulling. I found nothing but after talking with my dad he had mentioned when he was working in construction he saw the electrical guys apply white grease to the wire before pulling it. It was pretty hard to find the grease as no one in the store knew what I was talking about but I did find it an it is known as wire pulling lubricant which is at Lowes. With the lubricant pulling the wire from the dock to the house was very easy even with the two 90 degree pull elbows.
Here is a picture of the light fixture I used. I installed green lights which are easier on the night vision.
In the above picture some pvc cement can be seen on the conduit. This is the high strength glue for sprinkler applications which I neglected to wipe off. The building stores sell a special kind of pvc glue especially for electrical work. I tried it and it is nice that the glue does not dry as fast and can be wiped off a long time after the joint is made but I think I like the stronger sprinkler application glue better.
Once the light fixture was installed. I dug a trench about 2' deep from the dock to the house. Digging the trench took about 6 hours but was a good work out and gave me an excuse to jump in the ocean afterwords. So refreshing!
However I had a challenge to overcome. I had to slip electrical conduit under 10' of patio slab and then I had to route the conduit up the wall on the inside of the garage. I did not want to bust up the patio if I did not have to. After consulting youtube, I found an easy method of placing the conduit under the slab. The method uses the walkway tunnel kit which is a jet nozzle that is glued on end of the pipe and a hose attachment which is glued on the other end. If I had not run into a rock the first time I tried it I would have had the conduit placed in less than minute under the patio. Luckily, I was successful on my second try by directing the conduit through a slightly different route. A video the walkway tunnel kit in action is available at this link.
I did however have to bust a hole in the garage foundation with my harbor freight jack hammer so that I could find the conduit end and route it up the wall in the garage. Here are a few pictures showing what was involved in this process.
Below is the water nozzle with conduit attached inside the hole in the garage foundation
Below is the hose fitting end outside the garage after the hose has been detached and the pipe has been inserted under the slab.
Below is a picture of the conduit in the trench and attached to the conduit under the slab. The slab is kind of visible and is buried under the ladders.
Be careful when using the walkway tunnel kit. I recommend not tunneling a pipe to close to the cement slab. The tunnel kit washes dirt out and makes a cavern. It may cause the walkway to crack. Deeper is better. Also the quicker the pipe is installed and the water is turned off the better.
Once the pipe was placed under the patio I then prepared it so that could go up along the wall. This meant putting a 90 degree pull elbow on the pipe and chiseling out the wall footer so the conduit would run up flat against the wall. See picture below.
Below is picture of the wire being pulled through with the fish tape. Some white grease is visible on the wire. To attach the fish tape to the electrical wire I cut all the wires off except the ground wire. I then looped the wire around the fish tape and used several wraps of electrical tape to secure it. It is important that the taped up joint is not any fatter than the actual wire.
After the wire was pulled, I routed it through conduit to the electrical panel and attached it to a GFI breaker. For more about GFI breakers see my previous blog
Once the electrical was finished for the boat house I gave it a trial test. It worked perfectly!
So the question is how much was saved by doing project myself?
I spent 20 hours doing this task. At $50 an hour that would be $1000 dollars for labor. An alternate estimate for the amount that a contractor would have charged for the work is about $900 dollars. I arrive at this from talking with my neighbor next store and he said his electrical installation for wiring up his boat lift was $600. For me I had the additional work of adding the light and interfacing the conduit to the motor. Usually the interface to the motor is taken care of by the boat lift contractor. So I added and extra $300 for this. My only cost was for electrical supplies and was $294.
That's means a whopping $606 or 67% was saved. Cue the cash register sound.
Stay tuned for the next blog where I discuss the finishing of the boat house and if it would have been better from a financial perspective to have let the contractors do the work.
Happy Building!
The Dr.
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