Lowndes County · URD cable
We buy URD cable in Valdosta, Georgia
URD is cut to fit, so most of it arrives as a coil with no footage. On this ground the neutral is what decides whether it is still cable.
- Lowndes County
- Concentric neutral checked
- Coils and part reels
01Sold by the coil, not the reel
Sold by the coil, not the reel
Underground residential distribution is installed in the lengths the job needs. A crew pulls from a reel to a padmount, cuts, and moves on. What comes back at the end of a subdivision is a set of offcuts and a part reel, and what comes out of the ground during an upgrade is a coil.
That changes the first question from how much is there to how many pieces and what sizes. A pile of 2/0 aluminum coils is a different lot from one 1/0 reel, and the handling is different too.
- Part reels from a subdivision that finished ahead of the reel
- Offcuts from service runs to padmount transformers
- Cable pulled during an upgrade, usually coiled on the ground
- Riser cable from poles and pedestals, often short
Cable that has been in the ground has soil on the jacket and often a curl in the coil. Say whether it came out of a trench or off a reel.
02Concentric neutral is the part that fails
Concentric neutral is the part that fails
URD is a shielded cable with a neutral wound around it. In south Georgia soil, warm and often wet, that neutral is the part that corrodes, and it corrodes from the outside in. The conductor underneath may be perfect while the neutral has lost strands at a dozen points.
So the inspection is simple and it is not optional: run the length through your hands, count the neutral strands against what the print says, and look for white or green corrosion product between them. A full neutral and a one-third neutral are different cables, and the print on the jacket is where that is stated.
03Irrigation and farm service
Irrigation and farm service
The other half of the market is agricultural. Center pivots and pump panels take a service out into a field, and that service is buried, exposed to sun at the riser and exposed to equipment at the panel. Sun damage on a riser jacket is common in this part of the state, and it is visible as a chalky, cracked surface on the exposed side only.
Farm cable is also the most likely to have been repaired. A dig-in gets spliced and buried again, and a splice in the middle of a coil is worth flagging because it splits the length into two.
04Cooperative and developer work
Cooperative and developer work
Distribution in the surrounding counties is largely in the hands of electric membership corporations, and their crews release material when a line is rebuilt. The other source is developers, who install underground service for a subdivision and sometimes finish with reels the cooperative did not take over.
Material that was never accepted by the utility that was meant to own it is common here, and it is usually the cleanest material in the county. Say which it is, because acceptance paperwork changes the review.
05Related
06Questions
Valdosta questions
Do you buy single coils of URD?
Yes. Size and neutral construction matter more than quantity, and a single coil with the jacket print readable is easy to review.
How is footage handled on coiled cable?
It is measured or estimated from the coil, and the result is stated as an estimate. Cable that was cut to length in the field rarely has a tag to work from.
Does a corroded neutral mean the cable is scrap?
If enough strands are gone, yes, because the neutral is part of the circuit. The copper is then reviewed as conductor rather than as URD.
Send the URD sizes and coil count
Conductor size, neutral construction, how many coils or part reels, and whether the cable came out of the ground. A photograph of the jacket print helps.