Hello,

I have a somewhat simple question. I have 4 seporate wires going from my breaker box in the house to my detached garage. The wires are sheilded individually, but they are all seporate from each other. The wires are exposed for about 15 feet under the house until they go into underground pvc. The inspector told me I need to have the exposed wires covered with a conduit. So I got some metal felx conduit to cover them up. Right now I have pvc going from the breaker box to the floor and then I connected the metal conduit to it. It goes under the house and connects to the underground piece of pvc that goes to the garage. Is this acceptable? Does that 15 ft metal conduit need to be grounded in any way? I've included a diagram to make it more clear.

Thanks

Others on this site have told me in the past it is better to have one large heavy gauge wire going out to a detached building rather than 4 separate ones. And I don't like mixing different types of conduit either, I'm sure another piece of PVC conduit would have been cheaper anyway? I'm thinking you could attach a ground wire to the outside of the metal conduit and then attach that to a ground rod you install close to the outside wall.

I don't have a real handle on the "wires" you mention. Are they individual wires or cables with multiple wires in a sheathing?

In any case,


I'm thinking you could attach a ground wire to the outside of the metal conduit and then attach that to a ground rod you install close to the outside wall.

This is not allowed as simply connecting the metal sheathing of a flexible, or any conduit to a ground rod, is not the proper method for grounding the conduit.


A clear photo of the wires you mention exiting and entering the PVC conduit would help greatly in answering your question.