Specs are compiled from manufacturer listings and verified buyer reviews and can change over time — please confirm the key details on the product page before buying.
If you are running power to a shed, a detached garage, a well pump, or a post light, the wire you bury is the one part of the job you never want to redo. The right pick here is a 10-gauge, three-conductor underground feeder cable — 10 AWG copper, three separate conductors, and a UF-B jacket rated for direct earth burial. That combination is what lets you skip conduit and drop the cable straight into the trench. The picks below all match that exact spec, so the real question is length, jacket, and how the seller cuts the spool.
I’m Mohammad Maruf — the founder and writer behind KitchPrep. This guide is built by comparing the manufacturers’ published specifications and the patterns across verified customer reviews, so you get each pick’s real strengths and trade-offs instead of marketing spin.
Wire is sold by the foot, and the length you order is the difference between a clean run and a scrap pile, so matching cable length to your actual trench matters as much as the gauge does. This breakdown of the 10/3 uf wire covers where each cut length actually fits.
Our Picks at a Glance
How To Choose The Best 10/3 UF Wire
Three things decide whether a spool of this cable works for your job: the gauge, the conductor count, and the length. Get all three right and the install is a weekend. Get one wrong and you are either pulling wire back out of a trench or buying a second spool to finish the run.
The gauge sets your amperage ceiling
10 AWG is the copper thickness, and it is the number that sets how much current the cable can safely carry over a given distance. Thicker wire carries more amps with less resistance, which is exactly why 12 and 14 gauge cable will not do the job a 10-gauge feeder is bought for.
Three conductors versus two
A 10/3 cable holds three insulated conductors plus a bare ground in the same jacket. That third conductor is what gives you a neutral, which is what sub-panel feeds, 240-volt circuits, and anything needing both hot legs and a return path actually require. A 10/2 will physically fit the same trench and cost less, but it will not feed the same circuits.
Buy the length your trench asks for
Big-box stores sell this cable in fixed rolls, usually 100 feet or more, which leaves you paying for wire that never leaves the spool. Sellers who cut to order let you order the run you actually measured. Leave yourself a little slack at both ends for terminating, then forget the leftover footage entirely.
UF versus UF-B, in one line
Both are underground feeder cable built for direct burial. UF-B adds a ground wire inside the jacket and is the version most modern installs specify, so it is the type worth matching when you compare listings.
Quick Comparison
| Model | Best For | Length | Conductor Count | Ampacity Rating | Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwire 13059122 Romex SIMpull 10/3 UF-B★ Best Overall | Short garage and outbuilding runs | 50 ft | 3 | — | Amazon |
| Wirenco 10/3 UF-B (50 ft Cut)Best Value | Tight trench measurements | 50 feet | 3 | 30 A | Amazon |
| Stock Wire 10/3 UF-B (75 ft Cut) | Runs that fall just short of a full roll | 75 ft | 3 | 30 A | Amazon |
| Stock Wire 10/3 UF-B (100 ft Cut) | House-to-shop sub-panel feeds | 100 feet | 3 | 30 A | Amazon |
| Wirenco 10/3 UF-B (100 ft Cut) | Long shed and detached service runs | 100 ft | 3 | 30 A | Amazon |
| Stock Wire 10/3 UF-B (150 ft Cut) | Far-flung outbuildings and wells | 150 ft | 3 | 30 A | Amazon |
In‑Depth Reviews
1. Southwire 13059122 Romex SIMpull™ 10/3 W/G Type Uf-B Building Wire, 10/3, 50Ft, Gray
Our pick — over 4.5★ from 800+ verified ratings; the strongest balance of quality and price.
The name-brand spool that electricians already trust, cut to a manageable 50 feet.
Southwire’s SIMpull jacket is the reason this is the pick to beat. SIMpull is a slick outer coating that reduces friction, which matters the moment you are dragging cable through a bored hole or a tight conduit sleeve instead of an open trench. It is 10-gauge copper, three wires plus a ground, and the grey PVC jacket is built for direct burial. At 50 feet, this suits a garage feed or a short run to a well pump where a full roll would just be waste.
You save money with this spool. Buyers report that it costs less than the same item at home improvement stores. One buyer ran this 50-foot spool 240 feet between a main house and an outbuilding and still had footage left over. It is the crowd favorite in this category, with a rating in the high 4s across 800+ reviews.
The catch is handling. The jacket is thick and the cable is genuinely stiff, so it fights you on tight bends and it is heavy to carry down a long trench. A couple of buyers describe it as very stiff and heavy. That is normal for UF-B construction — this is armored-feeling cable, not flexible cord — but plan your pull route accordingly and have a second set of hands for the big coils.
Why contractors reach for it
- SIMpull jacket cuts drag when you pull it through a hole or sleeve
- 10 AWG copper with three conductors plus ground, in a grey jacket rated for direct burial
- Consistently lands below big-box pricing on the identical item
Where it will slow you down
- Stiff and heavy enough to need a second pair of hands on long pulls
- 50 feet runs out fast if your trench tape reads longer than you remembered
Reach for this if: you want the brand electricians recognize in a short run and you would rather not fight a 250-foot coil around the yard.
Look elsewhere if: your trench measures past 50 feet, because buying two spools to bridge the gap wastes more cable than a cut-to-order length would.
2. Wirenco 10/3 UF-B Wire, Underground Feeder and Direct Earth Burial Cable (50Ft Cut)
A 50-foot cut that undercuts the brand spool without giving up the burial rating.
Two numbers do the heavy lifting on this one. It is rated for 600 volts and carries an allowable ampacity of 30 amps — ampacity being the maximum current the cable can safely carry, so 30 amps is the ceiling this feeder is built around. The conductors are three annealed bare copper strands, meaning soft copper that bends without work-hardening on you. Heat capacity is rated to 90 degrees Celsius. The jacket handles sun and moisture, so outdoor and wet-location runs are both in bounds.
The Wirenco 50-foot cut comes in just under the brand-name 50-foot spool, and the value math gets sharper as the roll grows. Compare the 100-foot cuts against each other and the Wirenco version sits at the same footing on length while the two listings are close enough that jacket feel becomes the tiebreaker. Owners describe the stripping difficulty and flexibility as matching the pricier brands — no downgrade in the jacket or the pull, just a shorter spool.
One thing to expect: this is cut from a larger spool by the seller, taped up for shipping, and it does not arrive in retail packaging with printed labels the way a store roll would. That is cosmetic and does not change a foot of the cable, but if you like your wire double-boxed and branded, this is not that. Buyers have also flagged that the bare ground wire comes in slightly smaller gauge than the diagram suggests — worth a glance before you land it on a lug.
Same wire, shorter paper trail: the stripping, the flexibility, and the bury rating all match the branded spool — you are giving up retail packaging and printed labeling, nothing electrical.
Check the ground before you land it: the bare copper ground can run a touch thinner than the listing diagram implies, so verify it seats properly on your terminal before backfilling.
Best fit: a 40-to-50-foot shed or pump run where buying a full retail roll means paying for footage you will never bury.
Skip the tape and labels expectation: this arrives as a taped cut length, not a branded box, so if that matters to you the name-brand spool is the better order.
3. 10/3 UF-B Wire, Underground Feeder and Direct Earth Burial Cable (75ft Cut)
The odd length that fits the job you actually measured — not the roll the store insists on.
Seventy-five feet is an odd length, and that is the point. You get three conductors of 10-gauge soft bare copper (10-gauge means the wire thickness; lower numbers are thicker), a 30-amp allowable ampacity (the maximum current it can carry safely), and a 600-volt rating (the insulation can handle up to 600 volts). This spool is built for the middle distance most real trenches need. That gives you 25 feet more than the Wirenco 50-foot cut without making you buy a full 100-foot roll.
This length is made for installers who measure first. If you are wiring a detached office about 70 feet from the panel, you get a clean run with a little slack at each end. You avoid buying a roll and feeding two and a half extra feet into the trench or leaving 25 feet coiled in the garage forever.
Because it is cut to order from a larger spool, packaging is functional rather than pretty — tape and a shipping wrap, not a branded box. The color may also vary from the listing image, since the seller pulls from whatever stock is on hand. Neither affects the burial rating or the ampacity, but do not order this expecting the photo to match the box.
Length as the whole pitch: one honest price per foot and enough cable to land the run without rolling up a quarter of the spool for the shelf.
Worth picking when: your tape measure reads somewhere between 65 and 75 feet.
Nudge toward a longer cut if: the trench run is likely to grow before you dig it — the 100-foot cut gives you the same wire with more cushion.
4. 10/3 UF-B Wire, Underground Feeder and Direct Earth Burial Cable (100ft Cut)
The workhorse length: enough cable for a real house-to-shop run, priced per foot where it counts.
A hundred feet is the length most detached-building jobs actually need, which is why this Stock Wire cut is the pick a serious DIYer ends up on. Same core spec as the rest of the family — 10-gauge, three conductors, 30-amp ampacity, 600-volt rating, and a jacket that shrugs off sunlight and moisture for direct burial. It runs 50 feet longer than the Wirenco 50-foot cut, so this is the length you buy when the tape measure on the trench reads somewhere past triple digits.
The build holds up to the job. Owners describe it arriving well packaged and heavy duty, and the biggest cohort of reviews lands on the pick working exactly as needed for a shop or sub-panel feed. Ease of install shows up in the reviews too — pulling it into a buried run between a house and a detached office and landing the terminations cleanly is the kind of job this cable was built around.
One thing to know: the conductor counts run in a multi-strand build under a copper-and-nylon construction, so it handles like a real feeder cable — stiff, weighty, and worth having a pull partner for. It is not a cable you wrestle one-handed down a long trench. That is normal for the build, not a defect.
Length and spec in one order: the exact gauge, conductor count, and burial rating you need, in the size a house-to-detached-structure run calls for.
Not a one-hand pull: this is stiff, heavy feeder cable, so budget a second set of hands for the coil and the pull down the trench.
Hit order on this one if: your run needs close to a hundred feet of buried feeder and you want the ampacity and voltage ratings to carry you through.
Step down to the 75-foot cut instead if: you have already measured the run and know it lands short — the extra 25 feet will just sit on a shelf.
5. Wirenco 10/3 UF-B Wire, Underground Feeder and Direct Earth Burial Cable (100Ft Cut)
The premium 100-footer — same wire, more jacket confidence on a long buried run.
Double the Wirenco 50-foot cut and you get this one: 10-gauge three-conductor cable, 30-amp ampacity (the maximum current it can carry safely), 600-volt rating (the insulation can handle up to 600 volts), and a direct-burial jacket (a covering made to sit in the ground). It sits at the top of the Wirenco range because of the run length. At 100 feet, it reaches a shed, a well house, or a detached service without a splice. The burial rating lets you drop it straight into the trench instead of paying for conduit on top.
The feedback from installs lines up with the spec. The recurring theme in owner reviews is the same as the shorter cut — the cable strips and flexes like the pricier brands, and it delivers a 30-amp underground service without drama. One service landed in a shed with everything terminating cleanly the first time. If you are already running a 30-amp circuit and the trench tape reads over 90 feet, this is the natural shortlist entry.
The honest note is the same one this whole family carries: fresh-cut from a larger spool means no retail labeling, and the wire color may not match the listing photo. The electrical spec is unchanged by either, but if you expect a branded box on arrival, you will be surprised.
Built for the long run: three 10-gauge conductors, a 30-amp ampacity rating, and a burial jacket — enough spec to push power a hundred feet underground.
Cosmetics come second: cut from a larger spool and shipped in tape rather than a printed package, with color that may vary from the photo.
Choose this if: your trench is over 90 feet and you want the Wirenco jacket construction at the length a detached service actually requires.
Anyone measuring under 80 feet should skip it: the 75-foot and 50-foot cuts carry the same specification with less footage to leave coiled on the spool.
6. 10/3 UF-B Wire, Underground Feeder and Direct Earth Burial Cable (150ft Cut)
150 feet of direct-burial feeder for the outbuilding that checks in far from the panel.
This is the long-distance pick. 10-gauge copper, three conductors, 30-amp ampacity, and a 600-volt rating — same spec family as the shorter Stock Wire cuts, just stretched to 150 feet for the far-flung run. It beats the Southwire 50-foot spool by a wide margin on length — 150 feet against 50 — which is the entire reason to consider it. A well house out past the fence line or a detached shop at the back of the property is what this cut was built around.
The spec sheet matches the other Stock Wire cuts. You get three annealed soft bare copper conductors (annealed means the copper is heated and cooled to make it flexible), a 90-degree-Celsius heat capacity (the insulation can handle up to 90°C), and a jacket rated for direct burial (safe to bury in the ground). It also has a residential application most listings leave out: it can be used indoors in wet or corrosive locations. That matters if part of your run leaves the trench and passes through a crawlspace or a damp utility room on the way to a panel.
Two things to plan around. First, the seller cuts this to order from a larger spool, so packaging is tape and shipping wrap rather than a branded box and the wire color may vary from the listing photo. Second, the recurring note on this listing is on the delivery side, not the cable — an order occasionally lands later than the original estimate, which is worth factoring if your trench is already dug and open.
What you get for the length
- Three 10-gauge conductors at 30 amps of ampacity, 150 feet of buried run without a splice
- Also rated for indoor wet or corrosive locations, not just direct burial
Worth knowing before you order
- Cut from a larger spool, so it ships taped and unlabeled, and wire color may vary from the photo
- Delivery timing occasionally slips past the listed estimate — leave buffer before backfilling the trench
Order this one when: the run is genuinely far — over 130 feet to a barn, well, or back-corner shop — and a splice in an underground line is not something you want.
Trim to the 100-foot cut instead if: the measured run fits within a hundred feet; there is no reason to layer extra footage into a trench that will not use it.
Understanding the Specs
AWG gauge and what it controls
AWG is the wire gauge number, and it runs backwards from how you might guess — a smaller number means thicker copper. 10 AWG is thick wire, which is why it is the gauge this feeder family is built on and why 12 or 14 AWG will not carry the same load. Thicker copper holds more current with less heat and less voltage drop over the length of the run, so the gauge sets the ceiling on what your buried line can safely feed.
Ampacity and the 30-amp ceiling
Ampacity is the maximum current the cable is rated to carry continuously. Across these cuts the allowable ampacity is 30 amps, which is the ceiling the buried feeder is designed around — a shed sub-panel, a well pump, or a shop service all sit comfortably under it. Bury it in soil that runs warmer than open air and the practical limit tightens, so treat 30 amps as the target, not a number to sit on top of.
UF-B and direct burial
UF stands for underground feeder — the cable type rated to go straight into the ground without a conduit sleeve. UF-B adds a bare ground conductor inside the jacket, which is the version most residential installs specify. The jacket resists sunlight and moisture, so it holds up both buried in soil and exposed to the elements where the run surfaces at a panel or a light post.
Voltage rating and heat capacity
The 600-volt rating is the insulation threshold (the maximum voltage the insulation can handle). That gives you a comfortable margin above the 120-volt and 240-volt residential circuits these cuts are typically used on. The 90-degree-Celsius heat capacity is the temperature the conductor insulation can tolerate. That number decides how much current is safe once the cable is buried and can no longer shed heat into open air the way it would in free space.
FAQ
Can I use 10/3 UF-B wire without conduit?
What is the difference between 10/3 UF and 10/3 UF-B wire?
How much amperage can 10-gauge UF-B wire carry?
Can I use 10/3 UF-B wire indoors?
How deep do I need to bury direct burial feeder cable?
Is 10/3 the same as 10-gauge three-conductor wire?
Can I bury 10/3 UF-B under a driveway or patio?
Why do sellers cut this cable to order instead of selling fixed rolls?
What maintenance does buried 10/3 UF-B cable need?
Can I splice 10/3 UF-B wire underground?
Final Thoughts: The Verdict
For the strongest first pick, the Southwire 13059122 Romex SIMpull 10/3 UF-B wins on the combination of a slicker pull jacket, the brand electricians already recognize, and a short length that keeps a small run clean. If you need a cut that matches your trench exactly, the Stock Wire 75-foot cut is the value play — mid-range footage at a per-foot price that lands under the box-store roll. And for a genuinely long buried run to a barn or well house, the Stock Wire 150-foot cut spans the distance without a splice.
How We Picked
We do not accept paid placement. Every pick is matched to a real buyer and a real use-case; we do not hands-on test units.
Sources & Methodology
Specifications: manufacturer listings and product documentation. Review insights: verified customer reviews, as of September 2026. Pricing: not shown on this page (it changes often); check the current price via the retailer link.
As an Amazon Associate, KitchPrep earns from qualifying purchases. This does not affect which products we feature.
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