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.

 

[Curious Hound]

3AWG is not commonly used. That makes ot harder to find and sometimes more expensive.

3/0 wire is much larger than 3 gauge. Wire gauge sizes are weird. They start really tiny, maybe less than 32 gauge, and run up in size through 1 gauge. Then they keep getting bigger - 1/0 (1 ought), 2/0, 3/0, etc.

What Franklin said about quadraplex is correct. When I was doing services more routinely, it seemed the supply houses in my area didn't carry quadraplex. So I always had to use triplex and add the ground.

The green screw he mentioned is called the neutral bonding screw. It connects or "bonds" the neutral to ground. As mentioned, you will NOT be installing it in this project. The neutral and ground should only be bonded in one location in a service. That must be either at the meter can or the main breaker panel. There is one other time to bond neutral and ground. But that is when you use a transformer to produce a "new service". That doesn't apply here in any way.

 

[Curious Hound]

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

Good reason to use the aluminum.

 

[Jim Oaks]

The only 2-2-4-6 MHF I can find is aluminum and I need 1 AWG for 100 amps.

The only wire I can find that O can go pick up is Southwire 1/0-1/0-1/0-2 aluminum wire for $551 + tax

If I want copper I'd have to order it online from a wire distributor.

3-3-3-5 is $885
2-2-2-4 is $1063

Huge difference in price from the aluminum.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Scrap prices near me;
Aluminum - $0.40/lb
Copper - $2.00/lb
This is off the top of my head, there is great variation in pricing for quality. But this is average here.

 

[Curious Hound]

You may find that most of these cables will have the neutral the same size as the line conductors. So, something like 2-2-4-6 is less common or not available. But 2-2-2-6 would be available. It has to do with the types of equipment we use these days. Technologies have changed and best wiring practices have had to adapt. It has been found that the neutral should not be derated (downsized) any more. The explanation gets pretty deep in electrical theory. There is an electrical supply house in Gainesville (wholesale electrical supply) that may be useful to you even though it's a bit of a drive. Closer than Lowe's apparently. The key might be to have your whole shopoing list ready. Tell them what you're doing and let them quote the whole list. Sometimes that gets you a better price. Independent suppliers are more likely to "help" you than big chains like Graybar. You could tell them I sent you. But they don't know me.

 

[Robertmangrum.rm]

They use aluminum here for just about everything house. I also used aluminum back when I wired houses. They make something you are supposed to coat the wire with before you tighten them under the lugs. Can't remember what it's called. But my point is I wouldn't be scared of the aluminum. It has to be larger than copper for the fact it's not as conducive as copper which causes it to have a larger voltage drop. I can almost bet as cheap as they build new houses around here that 90% of them have aluminum service wire.

 

[Curious Hound]

Can't remember what it's called.

That's the No-alox I mentioned earlier. It prevents the aluminum from oxidizing in the connections. Aluminum oxide doesn't conduct very well.