Buying USE-2 conductor for service and solar lots.

Underground service work uses USE-2 for the run from a meter or a pedestal to a building, often in pairs or in sets of three. Solar work uses it for the direct-burial portion of a run between an array and an inverter, where the same jacket properties apply and the same sizes appear.

The two sources leave different residue. Service work leaves short tails cut at a trench, while solar work leaves partial reels and long offcuts from a rack layout that changed. The solar lots are usually cleaner, because they were never buried and the jacket has only seen sun and handling.

Sunlight resistance matters more on this family than on almost any other, because a USE-2 run can be exposed at a roof transition or a riser before it disappears underground. A jacket that has chalked on the exposed section is expected; one that has cracked through is a different matter.

Direct burial means the jacket is the only protection the insulation gets. A nick from a shovel, a scrape from a rock or a pinch where the cable passed under a slab is the kind of damage that decides whether the rest of the conductor is worth reviewing. The same jacket damage is read the same way on URD.

Photograph the exposed section and a cut end together. It shows a buyer both what the sun did and what the jacket is hiding.

A site holding both trades produces reels that are the same family and different histories. Ground-pulled conductor is dirty, may hold water and often carries a few feet of damaged jacket at each end; roof-run conductor is clean, sun-exposed and usually longer.

Sorting by source before a visit is worth the effort. Two clean reels from a solar job and a dirty coil out of a trench are reviewed as two lines, and the seller who says which is which saves a round of questions and a second look at the yard.

• Label each reel with the source: trench, roof or rack.
• Keep copper and aluminium apart, even where the gauge matches.
• Note any reel that has been re-spooled, since the footage is then an estimate.

USE-2 is a single conductor, so the print is long and repetitive, and one clear photograph of it usually identifies size, insulation and temperature. The reel tag adds factory footage and the date it was made, and both belong in the list beside the reel rather than in a separate message.

Where a reel is part-used, photograph the face of the coil so the buyer can see how much is left against the drum. That single image often settles the footage question before anyone has to weigh a reel, and it takes a moment while the reel is still accessible.