My springtime plan is to put in 2 driveway pillars with low voltage landscape lighting using hardscape lights under the pillars caps. I'm anticipating 3 on each pillar. The pillars will be constructed using concrete base pad with sono tubes under the bases for strength. On top of the concrete base I'll be using CMU'S , concrete masonry units with a square dimension of 23-5/8" . I have a long driveway and plan on trenching 18 inches and using PVC conduit along side my driveway, approximately 200 feet to transformer in front of the housr. I'll be using real stone for finish. I have my pillars designed with Autodesk inventor 3D. What I'm looking for are schematics, detail drawings or sketches on how to go about running PVC under the driveway and to each pillar. I would like to rough everything in and come back later to finish the lighting. My sono tube depth will be 24 inches with a 14 or 16 inch diameter with rebar reinforcement. I Googled for quite some time and can't find the answer that I'm looking for. I only got little answers from the web. I can post my plan in PDF format. What I need is more info or resources for running PVC from each pillar. How many runs, etc. I would like to plug this info, edit my model and have a good solid plan. Any website, info or resources would greatly be appreciated.
Hi, Tom. I've done this on a smaller scale (using a flexible drill bit to bore under my walkway (which is only a few feet wide) but it sounds like you might need some big guns (like possibly a boring machine), for your driveway. Someone with more experience than I have might chime in but it also might be a good idea to contact VOLT customer service directly for guidance.
Thank you for the reply. I should have mentioned that my driveway is currently compacted gravel. I'm either renting a trenching machine or using a pick bar , shovel to go across and rough in my pvc . I should have that done in 3 hours. Paving is on my list for the future. What I'm looking for is how to run that PVC, because it will be in concrete sono tubes and base for the pillars. So far what I came up with is 2 90 degree elbows and spools. I want this to be right because once that concrete cures there is no going back. My guess is a long run ov PVC from transformer to the pillars and another run from each pillar to drag the wire through. Basically what I'm after is what the norm is, what size pvc. I want to have a good plan in place to avoid pitfalls of should have later. Planning is 80 percent of the project.
In terms of pvc size, I based my own diameter choice (3/4”) on the thickest gauge wire my transformer will accept and the maximum number of wire runs of that gauge I could imagine myself needing. I know I could easily tunnel another channel under the walkway if necessary but my goal was to make sure I didn’t have wires packed in too tightly but I also didn’t have an unnecessarily wide diameter pipe.
