Pole barn shop wiring

[Curious Hound]

Conduit is definitely not cheap. By RonD's numbers, 10 ft if 1/2" EMT is $9 + $7.50 for the wire. Plus conduit connectors, couplings and straps is well over $16.50 just to go 10ft.

BX or MC cable is really the simplest way to go and maybe the cheapest. Buy 250ft rolls to bring down the cost per foot.

You can also do a hybrid of romex and conduit. Stub a piece of EMT from your outlet box or switch box straight up the wall to get above ceiling height. Put a coupling and romex connector at the top. Run romex across the ceiling to the conduit and just stick it down the straight piece of conduit. You can strip the outer sheath from the part that is encased in conduit if you want. It's a very easy way to protect your wiring. And you can buy all romex instead of some rolls of romex and some rolls of individual wires. You must have the clamp where the romex enters the conduit. Again, buy your romex in 250ft rolls to get the price per foot as low as possible. You'll be surprised how fast 250 ft of cable disappears when wiring a home or shop.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I think some things might be different on residential secondary structures from what I've heard... commercial is one thing but not what I'm doing, this is an open building with no walls, just the outside skin with the insulation blanket wrap stuff under the tin...

That said, for simplicity for what I'm doing it turns out the spool of MC I have is 250' of 12/2 so I'll just run that over to the light switch and a couple outlets to get me by. I'm pretty sure I can use Romex for this, but it won't hurt a thing to use MC. Other than small consumables (maybe, pretty sure I have everything) I have enough parts to do it either way, even have the anti short clip things for the MC and some support straps

I have a friend that just got his pole building through inspection that is built similar and he has Romex going to the lights, but he has conduit going to the outlets since he went under his slab...

 

[Curious Hound]

MC cable is good.

All advic e I offered above applies to your building. Makes no difference whether it's a shop in your yard, a residence or a commercial or industrial building. Code is code, safety is safety.

Feel free to do what you want. We're just trying to help and teach.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I appreciate all, I just thought I heard there were some differences... I'll look into it more and ask some locals...

Even doing a couple outlets and getting to the light switch is close to 100', won't take much to get through my wire... I could take some shortcuts but it all adds up...

 

[scotts90ranger]

I'm getting there, I put up 4 duplex boxes, two boxes per breaker skipping so every 12' is a separate breaker in case I'm running 4 harbor freight grinders at once somehow neither circuit is overloaded . Or more likely the belt sander and the horizontal band saw at the same time... I get to help my brother tomorrow and Wednesday evenings so I'll get them wired up on Thursday night. Sunday I got the lights wired up and in the box. After I get these outlets wired in I'll finally get to pull the extension cord out of the rafters and install the last piece of corner trim!

 

[scotts90ranger]

Well, I can officially pull the extension cord out of the rafters that it's been powered off of! Got two breakers and all 4 outlet boxes wired up tonight and working. Turns out I had wired in the GFI breaker incorrectly when I tried to hook it to the lights, misunderstood the white wire pigtail and the labeled "load neutral" deal, now it actually makes sense to me how it works... oh well, doubt the lights need a GFI breaker anyway... Both GFI breakers I wired up are 20A and all outlets are even 20A rated with 12ga wire so I think I even did it right... except tonight I realized I didn't ground the light switch box, so I'll do that tomorrow night...

 

[Curious Hound]

Well, I can officially pull the extension cord out of the rafters that it's been powered off of! Got two breakers and all 4 outlet boxes wired up tonight and working. Turns out I had wired in the GFI breaker incorrectly when I tried to hook it to the lights, misunderstood the white wire pigtail and the labeled "load neutral" deal, now it actually makes sense to me how it works... oh well, doubt the lights need a GFI breaker anyway... Both GFI breakers I wired up are 20A and all outlets are even 20A rated with 12ga wire so I think I even did it right... except tonight I realized I didn't ground the light switch box, so I'll do that tomorrow night...

Good job. No. Lights didn't need GFCI protection.

 

[scotts90ranger]

The previous power supply (IE 100' free extension cord...) to the shop has been removed! It's windy as heck and I'm beat after this work week so I'm gonna lounge the rest of the night, tomorrows project is to clean up the mess I made (I kinda see why electricians leave a mess, I tried but I gave up after a while), put in the box ground in the switch box, then install the LAST piece of trim on the shop, when I did the other 3 corners I cut and trimmed it so it's ready to be screwed on... The last step will be figuring out how to tie in the ufer ground and doing some cleanup then calling for a final inspection!

 

[Shran]

I will chime in about the GFI thing. When I wired mine the inspector said I had two choices for that: the cheap way is to install one GFCI outlet on each circuit that contains outlets (so not lights.) The more expensive route is to install arc fault breakers that I believe eliminate the need for GFCI outlets.

I did the cheap route and now I've got like 7 GFCI outlets in the building. I hate them, several have stopped working and one would randomly start clicking really fast. Not that I would advocate for this but at that point you can simply replace them with regular outlets... I was really annoyed about that whole deal because I have a shop fridge/freezer, what happens when the GFCI outlet shits the bed and I lose the food that's in there? "code" can suck it.

 

[Curious Hound]

Arc fault does not eliminate the need for gfci. They are different types of protection. However, there are breakers with both gfci and arc fault protection built in. Those would qualify for gfci protection, of course.

My mom's house has a bunch of combination arc-fault/gfci breakers. And, at 3 or 4 years old, they are failing (Eaton brand). I have replaced all but one with a newer design of the same breaker, at a cost of roughly $55 each. Royal PITA!

 

[scotts90ranger]

I got the last piece of trim on last Saturday, so that's done... heard from the electrician today on what to do with the ufer ground, he said ignore it since they already put in a ground rod, looking into parallel grounds it kinda makes sense, whatever... So I'll get some cleanup done and get with him and hopefully get the final done soon... it's supposed to be in the mid to high 90's the next few days so I'm sure I'll be wishing I'd put up the attic fan deal I have in the peak to clear out the temp... I'll get there...

I'm sure hoping these stupid $55 breakers last more than 4 years... if they don't, it's $6 breakers! My grandma put in a garage in around '93, I haven't figured out the wiring completely yet but there's only like 5 outlets and they're apparently all off of one GFI outlet which we blew last summer... I'd call that a good run, but not all are that long lived...