looking for HEAVY gauge outdoor-rated electrical wire

[iiipopes]

8/2-gauge at a home improvement store? Good luck! Even heavy 10/3 Romex takes some looking for! (My grandfather used to install bulk milk cooling tanks on dairy farms. Hanging around him as a boy, I learned a lot more about electrical and refrigeration than you'd think, combined with all my mother's family being farmers and making what you need rather than purchasing it!)

If you can't find 8/2, there might be some 12/4 3-phase around. Just pick any pair and put the ends together, and you have the same conductivity specs.

Well, just a short Google and looky here:
http://www.doityourself.com/icat/6and8gauge
http://business.search.ebay.com/romex_C ... catZ100016
http://electrical.hardwarestore.com/14- ... re-uf.aspx

I'm sure there are others.

Plus a little graph to make sure it meets your needs:
http://www.windsun.com/Hardware/Wire.htm

BTW: rewiring some shop equipment, or putting in a hot tub?

[Dean]

How much will that spool weigh??

[Allen]

...
If you can't find 8/2, there might be some 12/4 3-phase around. Just pick any pair and put the ends together, and you have the same conductivity specs.
...

Correction: Two 11GA wires in parallel are equivalent to one 8GA wire. Good luck finding odd wire gauges (except for the wire sold to transformer and coil winders).

Since the only available safe 4 wire cable to use in place of 8/2 would be 10/4, which has more coper than 8/2 (and therefore should be more expensive), only some special deal on surplus merchandise would be attractive.

By the way, you probably already know it, but I'll mention it for some others: UL listing for your power wiring is important if you want your insurance company to actually pay off a claim for a loss that is at all related to your electrical wiring.

Cheers,
Allen

[iiipopes]

Hmm. I guess it is 11 guage. Oops. Good point on the insurance. And if it's being run between buildings, proper conduit is also key to insurance coverage.