My New House & Workshop

[bobbywalter]

can you split your lot and have them run a box to your garage so you have two meters?

like for a home business....? maybe some write offs ect...

 

[Jim Oaks]

Codes. You guys crack me up.

My neighbor across the street had Romex stapled to the wood siding on his house that ran to window A/C units.

 

[bobbywalter]

well, sometimes they will run another box for 600 bux or so and will eat it over time and then its there ....

worth a shot. way easier.

 

[Curious Hound]

Yeah. We've had that discussion about codes at your place in the past. Probably in the early pages of this very thread. Regardless of your code enforcement or lack thereof, I will try to ensure thst all my recommendations follow generally accepted codes in most of the US. I will also try to keep you safe. Even though you don't have inspections, we don't want you to be stuck doing a binch of expensive repairs when and if you ever try to sell the place.

Wish I lived nearby. You and I could knock that job out in a day.

 

[Jim Oaks]

can you split your lot and have them run a box to your garage so you have two meters?

like for a home business....? maybe some write offs ect...

I already have a wire going to a meter box on the shop. This is the breaker box it was connected to:

There wasn't even a main shutoff for that box. The wiring in this building was on the sketchy side.

I removed that box, cut the wire from the meter (There's no meter on the box. They removed it because the service had been cancelled), pushed the wire back through the bock, sealed the block, and painted the wall.

I had asked the local electrician about hooking that back up once I replaced the box and rewired everything, and he's the one that suggested I run it from the house. He said I'd get charged a business rate on the second meter and it would be a lot cheaper to run it from the house.

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[Jim Oaks]

And yes, I do things to what the code should be. When I replaced the vanity lights in my bathroom, I had to install a junction box because they just had a wire coming through the wall. I've found a bunch of places where there were no junction boxes. The wiring in the attic of the shop was wire nutted laying on top of the insulation with no junction box. That's why I re-wired it.

 

[Rick W]

Where are my electricians??

I want to start working on running the wire from my house to a subpanel in my shop.

The only thing that's 220 is my tankless water heater in my bathroom. I plan to have an air conditioner mounted in a wall open in the rear 'shop' portion of my building, and one in the front room of the building. I'm just using A/C units that run off a regular 120V outlet, and they will be on their own breakers. I also have an air compressor on its own breaker, and a 120V outlet for my welder.

I've been torn as to if I should have a 100 amp or 125 amp sub-panel in the shop.

I measured and it looks like I need 104 feet of wire. I may go a couple extra feet just to be safe. I'd rather have to much than come up short.

For 125 amps, Google is telling me I need:

• Aluminum wire: Use #1/0 AWG for the two hot and neutral conductors.
• Copper wire: Use #2 AWG for the two hot and neutral conductors.
• Ground wire: Use #4 AWG aluminum or #6 AWG copper.

For 100 amps, Google is telling my I need:

• Copper: Use 3 AWG copper or larger to minimize voltage drop over the 110-foot run.
• Aluminum: Use 1 AWG aluminum or larger.
• Ground wire: A #8 copper or #6 aluminum ground wire is the minimum size required.

So, for 125 amps it would be (2) 2 AWG wires for hot, (1) 2 AWG wire for neutral, and then (1) 4 AWG wire for the ground. Am I understanding correctly that this ground runs back to the main breaker box, and then there's the additional ground that goes to a copper grounding run outside of the shop?
I see the term 2-2-2-4 wire which sounds like it's what I need, but all of the 2-2-2-4 I find is stranded aluminum, not copper.

Lowes has some Southwire 1/0-1/0-1/0-2 Stranded Aluminum SER By-the-foot (not in stock) that sounds like it might be what I need.

Does it matter if it's SER or URD if it's going underground in conduit?

I saw someone on YouTube running wire, and they were measuring out 100 feet of wire from a spool and cutting three lengths of it and then putting white tape on the wire being used for neutral. It seems like buying 110 feet of 1/0-1/0-1/0-2 Stranded Aluminum would be easier than getting individual lengths.

My plan is to run the wire through the conduit as I lay it. I plan to bring it to the breaker boxes, but I was going to have a local electrician make the connections to the panels. I figure I'll save a lot of money doing most of the work and then paying a licensed electrician to connect it.

So, my questions are:

1. How many amps of service do you suggest for the shop?
2. What wire would you suggest running 110 feet?
3. Does it matter if it's SER or URD if it's underground in conduit?
4. Should I try to find copper instead of aluminum?
5. What size ground to the copper rod in the ground? (6-10 feet away)
6. Anything that I need to consider that I'm forgetting?

With Aluminum, you have to be real careful how you run it and how you end it. If you kink it, it may not show, but you can lose transmission through the spot, or it can heat up at that spot. I don’t see a problem in using Aluminum, but it’s gotta be protected everywhere It goes because it’s fragile. My preference would be copper..

If you’re gonna tap into the panel on your house, how many amps is the panel at your house? I have been told that sub panel should be like 1/3 the amperage of the main panel, and where of course all the circuits in the main panel and in the subpanel, do not overload the drop to the house

 

[scotts90ranger]

It sounds about like what I did when I ran new wire to my garage when it shorted out about a year after I moved here... the wire they buried is some lead shielded stuff... it's directly buried under the sidewalk from my driveway... I jumped up a step or two and ran 1" conduit I think it was (on the small side, really sucked with how I did it...) and went to Home Depot or Lowes and bought the length of Red, Black and Green single conductor 6 AWG I think wire and the appropriate conduit length and all the elbows (and oh did I use those elbows, 6" from the foundation, around the porch, etc...) and put in a new 125A panel with main I think

If no codes I would just do it as best you can