You should be using liquid-tite conduit for exterior wiring
Heh… The exterior wiring is probably the sketchiest part of all of this. Because I cheaped out bigtime. Some time ago, my girlfriend happened to find a heavy duty extension cord that had fallen off a truck and been run over a few times. The insulation was damaged in some places, but it was a very big and heavy cord, worth saving. I spliced the longest undamaged parts of it together into a nice working extension cord that’s a bit shorter now. But I was also able to save another piece of around 12ft that hadn’t been damaged, but wasn’t worth making another joint in the cord to incorporate it. Kept that around … and now I’ve finally put (most of) that extra section to use, connecting my heat pump to wall power.
Don’t worry – it’s 12ga wire, the same as what’s feeding the thing inside the wall, and should theoretically be good up to 25 amps, while this heat pump should only pull 17 amps. But since it’s not Romex, it doesn’t have paper parts to its insulation and won’t be as sensitive to moisture. It’s also already sheathed in a thick, weather-resistant outer lining. I will be wrapping it in weather-resistant tape for additional long-term protection, though, and I’ll keep an eye on it from time to time to make sure it’s not degrading. No big deal to replace it if I need to sometime in the future, but at least for now, it should be fine, and I’m willing to see how long it lasts.
But, hey, can’t turn down free wiring, right?
and to keep the kids from hanging from it
No kids, thankfully, and none planned. Good thing too, because they’d probably want to climb all over this.
Heh… The exterior wiring is probably the sketchiest part of all of this. Because I cheaped out bigtime. Some time ago, my girlfriend happened to find a heavy duty extension cord that had fallen off a truck and been run over a few times. The insulation was damaged in some places, but it was a very big and heavy cord, worth saving. I spliced the longest undamaged parts of it together into a nice working extension cord that’s a bit shorter now. But I was also able to save another piece of around 12ft that hadn’t been damaged, but wasn’t worth making another joint in the cord to incorporate it. Kept that around … and now I’ve finally put (most of) that extra section to use, connecting my heat pump to wall power.
Don’t worry – it’s 12ga wire, the same as what’s feeding the thing inside the wall, and should theoretically be good up to 25 amps, while this heat pump should only pull 17 amps. But since it’s not Romex, it doesn’t have paper parts to its insulation and won’t be as sensitive to moisture. It’s also already sheathed in a thick, weather-resistant outer lining. I will be wrapping it in weather-resistant tape for additional long-term protection, though, and I’ll keep an eye on it from time to time to make sure it’s not degrading. No big deal to replace it if I need to sometime in the future, but at least for now, it should be fine, and I’m willing to see how long it lasts.
But, hey, can’t turn down free wiring, right?
No kids, thankfully, and none planned. Good thing too, because they’d probably want to climb all over this.