Reusing old buried wire service

There are several electric meter boxes here with old buried services that used to run to mobile homes that used to be on the property. I am wondering if anyone has been successful in digging up this wire and reusing it. I have a 50 amp plug for the welder but it is in the main building where we live and in order to weld I would need to put the welder inside and run the leads out the door and through the greenhouse to the lawn. If I could get about 70 or 80 feet of good cable I could run the line through the building overhead and out to the woodshed and learn to weld under the pole barn, which means I could work on rainy days. The meters have been removed from the boxes by the power company after we removed the trailers, but the wire is still in the ground. The trailers had 100 amp service so I am thinking the wire should be sufficient to carry power to a 50 amp receptacle, but I am not sure how best to go about digging up a wire without damaging it. I am guessing that by hand with a shovel is the way to go, maybe digging above where I think the wire runs and then pulling it up through the last few inches so as not to nick the insulation with the shovel. If anyone can advise whether this is a feasible idea and if it would be safe to reuse 30-40 year old wiring I would appreciate it. I know this is a kind of odd question.
Zach

First and foremost, is the power off at the pole?! Many haul away situations with pulled meters remain """ON"""!! If it is aluminum, it is probably only good for recycling. If copper, it still needs to have a hand over hand assessment of insulation. Some wire is also not permitted to be exposed to sunlight. The wire should have information embossed into the insulation about its exposure rating. Some wire is not rated to be strung in the air because it is easily stretched. Taking that into consideration is also important. Jim

I don't know about reusing this wire,but if you do and want to dig it with the least damage, this is what I would do. Get a narrow round point shovel or a sharpshooter some folks call them. Start at one end of the wire and dig down to find the wire and the general direction. Don't dig on top of it but right beside it and a little deeper. Then take the shovel point and be real careful and you can cave the dirt off the wire without nicking the insulation. It helps to do it when the ground is soft or after a good rain. Goo luck. Tommy

Thank you very much, I had assumed that once the meter was gone the power going out of the meter box would be off but I will check it. I will have to see if it is aluminum or copper, or if it is all the same. If I used it overhead it would be attached to a ceiling or joists all the way so I think stretching would not be an issue as it would be if it was suspended over a span, and it would be inside a building and thus not exposed to direct sunlight, although there would be more light than when it was buried in the ground.
Zach

Zack , as a retired residential/ commercial electrician , in answer to your question about reusing service cable , possibly . First of all is to make dearn sure all power is terminated to those cables , Then carefully dig up all the wires . Then clean the exterior so clean that you can possibly read the identify marks on the insulation . Then I would very slowly & assuredly run your fingers over every inch of each conductor while also feeling for any nicks , slite bulges (broken wire inside) at that spot .Now after doing your visual & feeling inspections , I would run a working resistance test on each conductor by connecting the test leads of a good ohm meter to each end of the conductors (one at a time) . If your inspections & tests prove each conductor is safe to use , I would do one more test as follows : Use a good 12 volt battery charger or a strong 12 volt battry as a power source . Now connect the ends of two conductors to that power source while being careful the opposite ends don't make contact with each other . Last is to use your 12 volt tester & connect to the other ends of those conductors to see if you get a reading .Run this same experiment on each & every conductor . Remember to use the proper size breaker or cartridge type fuses in conjunction with the size of your conductors while also keeping in mind your welders amperage rating . You do know that a good circuit breaker disconnect panel be installed at the building you intend on ending that service run & do not use too high of amperage breaker with that welder . If you follow these steps , I'd say you will be ok to reuse that buried cable . Now , when you rebury that cable & before backfilling , always lay an identifying tracker tape on top of that cable from one end to the other for additional Safety .Well Zack , I know I've been extremely long winded , but I do hope I served you well ? Be Safe & Be Careful !! God bless, Ken

Placing it in pvc conduit afterwards is what I did after digging up 700' of aluminum direct burial wire. Wouldn't have had to dig it up if anyone had told me that I either needed conduit or copper here. My building inspector tried to same me some money. Worked well for the first 15 years. PITA after that.

If that wire was properly buried in the first place, and is directly buried not in conduit, it is at least 24 inches deep. In Florida sand, not tough digging. In Carolina clay, very tough digging.

IMO it would be cheaper and faster and a whole pile less aggravating to just buy a chunk of new wire versus trying to dig it up old wire that may or may not be suitable anymore.

I"d consider digging it up any way possible, scrapping it, and using that money to buy 80 feet of proper cable.

I went out and checked and all of them are aluminum wire, so I guess it is a moot point. The pole with 4 meters on it has had the wires removed that fed it from the street line so that one was obviously dead. At some point I will need to talk to the power company and remove the pole and the wires, as it is sitting in the middle of what is now a hayfield.
Zach

A test with a megger will tell you if the insulation has failed.

Sounds like you have a lot more wire to dig up than you need for your project. I'd look into scrapping it and using the money to purchase new wire you know is good. Pretty easy to miss damage on used wire that can cause lots of trouble later on.

Might want to pull it out with a tractor, and sell it for scrap, then buy new. Maybe get lucky and pull the wire out of the sheath so you'll get a better scrap price for it.

I tried doing that with the cable that fed my old mobile home, which is long gone. I found that the cable broke and I tried pulling it both ways. The run was about 50 feet, but it was down more than 2 feet in very rocky ground.

When I had to replace my main water line, we had to dig through some of the buried, abandoned electrical cable, so I retrieved some more of it. I again tried pulling on the cable with the tractor, but again it just broke.

I don"t know what the pieces of aluminum cable are worth (they were to a 200 amp service), but I don"t think there would be any chance that the rest of the cable would be worth digging up just for the scrap value. I don"t think it is really hurting anything leaving the remaining pieces where they are. I suppose digging up pieces of cable might give a backhoe operator a concern sometime in the future, if they have to dig in that area. But I am not going to worry about it.

Since I buried that first electrical service wire in 1976, I have always put conduit around any underground wiring I put in. I wish I had used conduit that first time, but I was being cheap and really didn"t know better. Live and learn!

(quoted from post at 20:49:59 05/18/14) I tried doing that with the cable that fed my old mobile home, which is long gone. I found that the cable broke and I tried pulling it both ways. The run was about 50 feet, but it was down more than 2 feet in very rocky ground.

When I had to replace my main water line, we had to dig through some of the buried, abandoned electrical cable, so I retrieved some more of it. I again tried pulling on the cable with the tractor, but again it just broke.

I don"t know what the pieces of aluminum cable are worth (they were to a 200 amp service), but I don"t think there would be any chance that the rest of the cable would be worth digging up just for the scrap value. I don"t think it is really hurting anything leaving the remaining pieces where they are. I suppose digging up pieces of cable might give a backhoe operator a concern sometime in the future, if they have to dig in that area. But I am not going to worry about it.

Since I buried that first electrical service wire in 1976, I have always put conduit around any underground wiring I put in. I wish I had used conduit that first time, but I was being cheap and really didn"t know better. Live and learn!

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That's what I did, was use conduit, but haven't had to dig it up yet.
What gave me the idea of dragging it out with a tractor, when I was hauling scrap iron, I had to pick up a load at the DNR. They showed me a pile of gas pipe someone hooked a dozer on and would drag out a mile at a time. The DNR caught them and confiscated the pipe.