Hey Tim,
Well, you are working with well over twice the acreage that our project corrals, but the driveway/access and electric strike the same chord. To compare some notes, and if you haven't been there yet, hit my website and click on the driveway tab. It is mostly boring, but you will see a resemblance.
I have already spent quality time with our elec provider, also a co-op. The nice thing about a co-op is the ease on the wallet for installation. The downside is higher juice costs in the long haul. At least that's how it works by me.
We have not installed electric yet, but the plan is laid. We want to maintain the pristine beauty of the forest so we are nix'g the poles to go underground. Yes, the cost goes up by about $5K, but in the final analysis, it is the only option for the natural look. Also, to use poles means clearing a whole bunch more timber to make room for the run....Nope. We will run the power along one edge of the rock/gravel drive. I did learn one thing, tho, during our driveway/electric run clearing and construction. We have about 1400 ft of our 2000 ft drive that was cut right into the virgin timber, so the trees line it all the way. This means the elec trench must be laid directly next to the driveway. After we laid in the mega-tons of base rock for the drive, I called out the elec guru one more time to make sure he is comfortable with the approx. 10' wide electic easement that we cleared and provided adjacent to the drive portion that winds thru the woods. Well, we wound up flagging about a dozen more trees for removal. I kinda whined about it figgerin' he was just bein' a weenie, but he pretty much holds the cards. So, while my contractor was still on site, we had him go back and pull these last trees. Because they were fairly close to the newly laid and compacted base rock driveway, the roots disturbed this foundation as they were ripped out. Yep, more patching and compacting that I did NOT want. Also, he said that since we had all that rock so close, they would surely push some of it back into the elec trench during backfill. Because of this, I now have to install a 2" PVC conduit for the wire to protect it from long-term damage by potential soil movement and abrasion from a rock. This prompted regular searches of Ebay for about a month. I wound up picking up 1600 ft of 2" PVC optical cable conduit that passed elec co approval for juice installation. It's in my garage, waiting for my bank account to rejuvenate. I asked him during one of our "walks thru the woods" what preparations I might need if I decided later that I wanted to split off of this main feed to feed another site. He said nothing. They would dig down to the main feed and tap right into it. I asked him if I should consider a larger feed line up front, just in case. He said the line that they normally install would power a small neighborhood.
