Electrical – How close can I bury circuits to each other

electrical

I need to run 3 lines (2 – 20amp circuits and 1 – 50 amp circuit) in a trench 140 feet from my 200 amp panel. How close can I bury these circuits to each other?

To follow up with your questions: These lines are 1st going 140 feet to the 1st building (which will be a tiny house) That is the 50 amp. The tiny house will have it's own 50 amp panel.
Then the 2 – 20 amp circuits will go another 70 feet to a green house. I have been looking at running the 2 – 20 amp circuits in one 3/4 PVC conduit, coming up at the tiny house location just because I will need a box to pull the fishing tape through. The 50 amp would be a separate 1" PVC line. I have some depth limitations because of rock, but, for the most part can go down to 24 inches. I have concerns with the proximity of the 50 amp to the 2 – 20 amps. I would choose to run these in the same trench. But, I don't want any current jumping from one circuit to the other.

I plan to have all these circuits coming from an updated 200 amp panel from my barn, and wired with GCFI breakers, grounding them at every box and final locations.

Best Answer

If this run is going to an outbuilding and will be inspected, you can't have more than 2 circuits without a sub-panel. If an outbuilding, you need to run a 4 wire (2 hots, neutral and ground) to a sub-panel, add ground rods at the structure, and insure the grounds are isolated from the neutral. Running fewer wires (the 4 wire feed) feeding a sub-panel might actually be less expensive than running 3 separate circuits (which isn't code legal for that long a run anyway) and give you a much more flexible/expandable setup going forward.