My New House & Workshop

[Rick W]

Why can't I run the wire through the conduit as I lay it?

You can. Just be careful about kinking it. Home Depot will have the conduit, and the sweep elbows that @Curious Hound is talking about.

You may want to use a larger conduit than you need on the chance that you wanna sneak something else through it later on. Also, as you run the conduit and the wiring, pull a nylon cord through the conduit as well. That way it will be easy to pull something else if you want to. And always pull another nylon cord through if you add something, so it’s always there for the next thing.

There will be different opinions about sharing the conduit with anything. I ran an inch and a half to my garage, Now, 30 years later, that is packed full with various wires for the alarm system and such, and I even have a small airline running through it so I could blow things off in the kitchen sink

 

[Curious Hound]

Also, as you run the conduit and the wiring, pull a nylon cord through the conduit as well. That way it will be easy to pull something else if you want to.

NO.

You do not pull anything else in this conduit later. This should only be for the feeder to the sub-panel.

Besides, what else would you want in there? You can’t run computer network or telephone lines in the same conduit as the power. And the whole purpose of this conduit is to supply a sub-panel to power the circuits in the building. It’s not a matter of “Opinion”.

If you think you might want communications cables to the shop later, lay a second conduit in the trench with this one.

 

[Snoranger]

even If you don’t think you might want communications cables to the shop later, lay a second conduit in the trench with this one.

FIFY

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

The power to my garage is overhead so I can easily snag it with the combine if I so desire.

I do wish I would have Tee'd the water line and ran water to the barn when we put the line in to the house... for sure think long and hard about future expansion while you have the trench open.

 

[Jim Oaks]

Back around the 1920's my great-grandfather gave my grandparents (My dad's parents) this Ross Meehan dinner bell. My dad was born in '33 and said back then the bell wasn't just used on the farm to call you in for dinner, it was also a tool to call for help from other people in the valley. You could call for help or warn people of dangers.

My grandfather passed this on to my father, and it stood at the corner of our garage when I was growing up.

My father gave me the bell when I bought my first home, and I've had it at every home I've owned since.

When I moved to Texas it laid next to my daughters garage for a few years while I lived in an RV. After I bought my house it finally came home here, but it laid in my shop because I had cut about 2-feet off the bottom of the post to move it at some point, and didn't have any way to weld it back on at the time.

Last week I stripped all of the old paint off, welded the cut section back on, repainted it with RustOleum
And finally cemented it into the ground.

I had also made a new step outside the shop to get rid of the old cinderblocks.

Last spring I moved some shrubs from the north side of my house and planted them here because they were dying. I weeded around them, put down a weed barrier and a stone border, and filled it in with mulch. Now the side of the shop is starting to look a bit more presentable.

 

[Rick W]

NO.

You do not pull anything else in this conduit later. This should only be for the feeder to the sub-panel.

Besides, what else would you want in there? You can’t run computer network or telephone lines in the same conduit as the power. And the whole purpose of this conduit is to supply a sub-panel to power the circuits in the building. It’s not a matter of “Opinion”.

If you think you might want communications cables to the shop later, lay a second conduit in the trench with this one.

A pox upon me, I stand corrected. These guys are correct, the proper thing to do is to put in a second conduit.

I actually misspoke about what I did, a sad fact about my diminishing brain capacity in my senior years. My shop was wired with a buried underground feeder about 30 inches or 36 inches down, whatever the code was, the gas line coded and wrapped iron with sacrificial anodes about a foot above that, and then I did run a separate conduit for the phone snd alarm system. That was the conduit that I made much bigger that I ran other stuff through.

Sorry for the confusion, you guys keep watching me.

 

[Jim Oaks]

I remeasured for my wire and by using (2) 45s I shortened the distance to 97 feet. So my goal is to get 100 foot of wire.

From what I've been reading it sounds like a 100 amp panel should be fine.

I need 3 AWG copper or 1 AWG aluminum.

It's strange that it seems like I've been finding a better price on 2 AWG than 3 AWG

I've also seen 3 AWG THHN and 3/0 AWG THHN which is confusing to me.

I've also estimated prices from $1,200 - $1,500 for copper, and it seems like copper is 3xs the cost of aluminum.

 

[franklin2]

You are finding a better price for #2 because it is what is more commonly used for 100 amp services. If you get the trailer wire for 100 amps, it will have 2-2-4-6. Two #2awg, one #4 awg for the neutral, and one #6 for the ground. This is called "quadraplex cable, home depot sells it and the local elec supply places sell it.

Don't use Triplex as was mentioned before, it only has 3 wires. You need to run a separate ground for a sub panel, you need 4 wires.

Your main panel coming into the house will usually have the neutrals and grounds all on one bar or sharing bars together. This is on the first panel from the meter. After that, any sub panels have to have a separate ground. So if you feed the garage as a sub panel, then you need to run a separate ground to the garage, and then you need to buy a ground bar for the garage panel.

The panel you buy for the garage will have a green screw floating around inside it. You WILL NOT use this. This is for grounding the neutral bar to the box. You will not ground the neutral bar, you will buy a separate long grounding bar with a bunch of terminals on it, the box will have a place for it. You will bolt this in the garage box, and then your large green wire coming from the house will go to this bar. And all your grounds for the circuits in the garage will go to this grounding bar, all the neutrals for the garage circuits will go to the neutral bar, they are kept separate on the sub panel.