Gardner Bender HST-1300 Underground Cable Kit for Waterproof, 14-8 AWG, UF Copper Wire-Includes: 8 inch. Heavy-Wall Heat Shrink & Screw Splice Connectors , Black

When dealing with underground electrical splices, you absolutely cannot afford to cut corners—you need a permanent, waterproof, and durable connection. This Gardner Bender HST-1300 Underground Cable Kit is the gold standard for getting the job done right the first time. The key to this kit is the combination of its components. The Heavy-Wall Heat Shrink Tubing provides an incredibly robust, watertight seal that will withstand moisture, corrosion, and the toughest outdoor conditions for years. Coupled with the high-quality Screw Splice Connectors, this kit handles a wide range of common wire gauges, from 14 AWG up to 8 AWG, making it versatile for everything from landscape lighting to buried well pump cable repairs. The process is straightforward, yielding a result that looks and performs like a professional installation. After connecting the wires with the screw splices, applying the heat shrink creates an impenetrable barrier. This eliminates the annual worry of splice failure and ensures electrical safety in the trench. For any outdoor wiring project that requires a splice that will be buried, this kit offers unbeatable quality and peace of mind.

I used this to repair a buried power cable that I accidentally hit with an auger bit when installing some vinyl fence in our garden. I had patched it years ago using some silicone caulk, but over time the caulk had cracked open and let water get into the connection, which started tripping our GFCI receptacle. After reading other reviews of this kit, I was concerned that the included heat shrink was too large for my wire (either 12 or 14 AWG--I'm not certain), so I did use some smaller, glue-lined marine heat shrink tubing (not included in the kit) to build up the thickness of the wire so the included heat shrink would have a larger diameter to grab onto. After doing that, the included heat shrink closed onto the ends adequately, and i could see the glue oozing out, which let me know I (hopefully) have a good seal that will last for many more years.

I'm not sure what others are complaining about when it comes to the heat shrink tubing. Perhaps they've just not worked with heat shrink tubing much? I ordered three of these to do code-compliant splices of a 10/3 run, a 14/3 run, and a 14/2 run ... all of which exceeded 250 feet and, thus, needed to be spliced in order to use standard cable rolls instead of purchasing it by the foot. I took my time and was in no hurry with the splices. I elected to do the 10/3 run first since it would need the least shrinkage on the tubing and I could take my time to gauge how much heat could be applied safely. This stuff begins to shrink around 200F, but you must heat a fair amount of it to get it to begin to shrink. I used an electric heat gun with temperature control on it and found that by setting the gun at 600F and holding the nozzle approximately 1.5" from the tubing and fanning it back/forth along the tubing in 3-4" wide strokes, I could get it to shrink fairly readily. I heated 1/4 side of the outside of the tubing cylinder ... starting in the center and working outward to the ends. Once that quarter section had shrunk, I did the next quarter section ... then the third quarter section, then the fourth -- each time working from the center of the tubing, outward. I shrunk it in stages, too ... meaning I didn't try to get maximum shrinkage in each quarter; instead, I shrunk it a bit at a time for all four quarters of the cylinder ... and then re-shrunk it again. I did this to promote even-ness in shrinkage along all quarters ... to avoid holes or weak spots in the tubing. Since I was being careful and trying to find the correct temperature to use with my gun on this tubing, the first use of the heat gun took ~10 mins ... on the largest of my wires. However, once I had a known good temperature, I was able to shrink the others in ~3 minutes after putting the splice hardware in place. I had no issue with the 14/3 or the 14/2. The tubing shrunk enough for it. Key to this was the adhesive inside of it, which melts. I made sure to wear insulated leather gloves during the heating process so that as I was finishing up the shrinking of the tubing I could squeeze it together and feel the adhesive flow and set -- making sure there were no open air pockets or bubbles in the adhesive (that could result in easy puncture points later, during or after burial). These kits served me well and I will buy/use them again if I need to make code-compliant underground splices in the future.

Written by my husband. As others have noted, once the heat shrink is shrunk it is too large. So, here are some specifics that should have been included in the product description. The brass connector block is about 23mm (15/16") diameter. The pre-shrunk inner diameter of the heat-shrink tube is about 34mm (1 and 15/16"). The post-shrunk inner diameter is about 9mm (3/8"). A 14/2 UF cable is rectangular(ish) in shape about 5/16" x 3/16". So, the post-shrunk size is just a little too big to make a water tight seal on a 14/2 UF cable. What I did, was I purchased another heat-shrink tube and shrunk it onto the UF cable first. This tube was: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007Z3ZEJW which has a pre-shrunk I.D. of 3/4" and a post-shrunk I.D. of 2/16" but its wall thickness gets as big as 2/16" as it shrinks. So, on the 14/2 UF cable, once this tube was shrunk, the 14/2 had an approximate O.D. a little over 1/2". This enabled me to shrink the tube of this kit onto the other tube making a water tight seal. If you do this, make sure this kit's tube (the larger tube) overlaps the smaller tube by several inches but does not completely cover the smaller tube (a few inches of the smaller tube should still be visible).

Bought one at Big Box store. Needed a second. Same quality cheaper and didnt have to waste and hour

I am very disappointed! The heat shrink tubing supplied with both kits "did not" properly shrink. Both ends of each kit's heat shrink tubing "did not" come in intimate contact with the cable. "No sealant" was seen at the ends of either splice's heat shrink tubing. I contacted the manufacturer twice (ECM Industries at NVERT) on 10/27 and 10/29. I have yet to get a reply regarding my problem. To salvage the situation I purchased an outdoor rated rubberized electrical tape to seal the ends of heat shrink tubing.

I bought two of these to repair a 120v line feeding my flagpole light. I was able to unearth the line far enough to use two of these to splice in approximately 1 foot of new line. It was straightforward and a quality piece of equipment, and the waterproofing shrink tube did an excellent job for both fittings. Just remember to start from the center of the shrink tube with your heat gun and work your way towards the ends. Doing this will ensure you get any air bubbles out and the adhesive works its way out to the ends and make sure a very good seal.

Spliced a 12/2 (+ ground) UF cable with this about 8 years ago. It failed recently: about 10mA ground fault, which is small, but enough to trip a GFCI breaker. Water had intruded as you can see from the photos. Second photo is showing the moisture inside the removed heat shrink. The problem is that some UF cable brands have a pretty deep groove between the current-carrying conductors, and the adhesive from the heat shrink has a hard time filling that groove. So with the new splice, I overlapped two pieces of additional heat shrink over the end of the Gardner-Bender large heat shrink, stepping down to just larger than the size of the cable. This formed a much tighter seal. We'll see how it goes, but I think this one will last.

This unit worked well to spice underground lines cut by the excavator

Installed it a month ago. There have been some extremely heavy rains and no problems

worked good

Best (only) kit for this type of cable. Have used for years, no failures as far as I know.

Just what the doctor ordered