My New House & Workshop

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Recently Princess Auto had some Sylvania led 2'x4' drop in T-bar style lights for $35 a piece. If I had a use I would have bought a bunch. My boss has 10 2'x2' mounted on the side walls of our shop, they work great. Maybe check HF or clearance stores.

 

[scotts90ranger]

In my shop I have a slew of 4' LED fixtures... in the main shop there's 15 (used to be 16, one died, haven't replaced it yet as it's over the loft now so not important) of the Harbor Freight single row lights but when I did the loft I ordered a 10 or 12 pack from Amazon for like $100 and they seem pretty nice but the plugins are kinda annoying if you are going for aesthetics... I used one in the small room that'll be a bathroom, two in the bigger room and 3 in the working area.

 

[Rick W]

I bought these for my shop, sweet pea’s bonus room closet over her garage, and her basement. Probably 30 lights. Two have gone bad in six or seven years.

They are 4 feet long, but they have a double row of LEDs so they shine outward as well as downward. You can link them together without having to wire each one which makes them super easy to put in. And it comes out to under $10 apiece when you buy them 10 at a time.

In my shop, they are probably 6 feet apart, like four front to back in a 45 foot long shop, and then I have a couple extras over a particular work area. I almost have to wear sunglasses. If you put them 4 feet apart, you could probably get a suntan. You may want to wire them on two circuits, every other light, so you don’t have to turn on all of them every time or something like that.

They’re $81 plus tax for 10 of them delivered in a few days. Cut and paste this link, it’s from eBay.

Pardon Our Interruption...

Hope it helps

 

[sgtsandman]

I like the idea of separate switched banks when you don't need a lot of light. Not that LEDs burn all that much electricity.

 

[Rick W]

Afterthought, I also bought some with pull chains for sweet peas basement. When you flip the switch, it turns on the first two, and three are on the pull chain, and the pull chain on the far light turns on the rest of them. When she’s putting her away her 5000 Christmas decorations, she likes them all up, but usually just three or four if she has to go fetch something. You get the idea.

 

[franklin2]

I also found that I over estimated how much wire I was going to need by a few feet.

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Nothing wrong with having some extra wire. When it's too short, that is what ruins your day.

 

[Rick W]

I see some high power jumper cables coming

 

[Rick W]

What are you going to do for heat and air conditioning? If you go 220v, I think you save on amperage and on the electric bill.

When I built the shed of miracles, I picked up a “scrapped” 115,000 BTU gas horizontal furnace in the dump spot at the local heating and air supply. They just let me take it. When I checked it out, all it needed was a bearing in the squirrel cage. I had to buy a gas valve and a couple of relays, but it’s been working fine for 20 or 30 years now.

I picked up a 220 V blower for ventilation, but I never hooked it up. The duct would be like 2‘ x 2‘, again a freebie. I have a couple of exhaust fans in the ceiling to remove the heat, and that’s worked fine for what I do.

 

[Curious Hound]

I see some high power jumper cables coming

Not flexible enough to be useful that way. This wire is very stiff.

 

[Jim Oaks]

What are you going to do for heat and air conditioning? If you go 220v, I think you save on amperage and on the electric bill.

When I built the shed of miracles, I picked up a “scrapped” 115,000 BTU gas horizontal furnace in the dump spot at the local heating and air supply. They just let me take it. When I checked it out, all it needed was a bearing in the squirrel cage. I had to buy a gas valve and a couple of relays, but it’s been working fine for 20 or 30 years now.

I picked up a 220 V blower for ventilation, but I never hooked it up. The duct would be like 2‘ x 2‘, again a freebie. I have a couple of exhaust fans in the ceiling to remove the heat, and that’s worked fine for what I do.

I'll most likely get an A/C wall/window type of unit that also has a heating feature. Similar to this:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/GE-550-sq-ft-Window-Air-Conditioner-with-Heater-with-Remote-115-Volts-12000-BTU-Wi-Fi-enabled/5015995177

for each of my two A/C wall openings.

The building had two vintage propane heaters that went from the floor to the ceiling. I scrapped the one where the closet/pantry and door is now. The other one is still in the front room. That one has a hole in the exterior wall that a stack comes out of, and I've actually considered putting a wood burner there.

When I've worked in the shop in the past during the winter I've heated it with a kerosene heater.

There's an opening in the wall next to that heater where an old A/C unit was that my local A/C guy scrapped for me. This thing looked like one of the very first A/C units. There's also an opening at the very end (shop end) of the building for another unit. There's an outlet on the wall for each of them. I rewired those outlets with 120V, and each has its own independent breaker.

When I started wiring the building I had looked into A/C units and found that the 120V & 220V A/C units were equally efficient when using the properly sized A/C unit.

Remember that the 2nd half of the building is now closed off with a door, so I don't have to heat and cool the whole building. Also, the building is cinderblock, has a ceiling and insulation, and actually maintains a comfortable temp on its own. I've walked in there in the summer when it's 90-100 degrees outside and it was still cool on the inside. I've also walked into it when it was cold outside, and it was warmer inside than outside. It's probably more efficient than my house. My house has no insulation in the walls at all.

 

[Rick W]

All sounds good.

One little afterthought, when I built my shop, the only place there’s plumbing is in the bathroom, which is about 3’ x 5’, tiny. The code was I had to put in this 220 V wall heater. I’m surprised that thing hasn’t melted the slop sink I put in there. The thing clicked on and off constantly.

I picked up a couple of the little space heaters that are about the size of a big box of cereal, cut off that wall heater, and put them both in there. I check them at the beginning of the season, and then usually once a month or so when I’m out there. The concept is if one goes bad, the other one is still heating. I picked them up for like five dollars a piece at Goodwill, probably 10 or 12 years ago

 

[Jim Oaks]

It doesn't get below freezing here very often. I plan to set a little space heater in the bathroom when it does to make sure the plumbing and tankless water heater doesn't freeze.

 

[Rick W]

It doesn't get below freezing here very often. I plan to set a little space heater in the bathroom when it does to make sure the plumbing and tankless water heater doesn't freeze.

That’s what I meant. The wall heater is ridiculous hot, and I don’t run the whole furnace unless I’m working out there on a really cold day. We have 20 or 30 days a year when it’s below freezing, and usually two or three when it’s below 15°.

 

[Jim Oaks]

Ethernet / CAT6 Cable

I bought a wall box, drilled a hole in the back, added a PVC conduit threaded connector, nut, bushing, and cemented a piece of PVC conduit to it to stick it through the wall to the outside.

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I used a stud finder that also detects live voltage wires to make sure I could cut a hole here.

I used an ethernet wall plate that enables you to plug the cable into the back of it. With the plate installed, I can now connect it to my WiFi and have WiFi / Internet in the far end of my shop.

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I dug up the area where my waterline is, so it goes straight up the wall and I'm not running anything down the side of the house. The 3/4" PVC conduit is a lot more flexible than the 2-inch PVC.

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When I pulled the cable through, I pulled a line with it in case I should ever want to pull something through later.
I installed a 3/4" slip coupling at the house and shop connections just like I did with the 2-inch electrical.

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With the conduit and lines all ran, I filed in the trench and threw some grass seed on it.

 

[Jim Oaks]

Subpanel & Main Panel:

Here is the connections I made to the subpanel. One of the hot wires has red tape, and the neutral has white tape.

I DID NOT install the green screw to bond the neutral bars to the case. I added a ground bar, and there's a ground wire going from it to the 8-foot grounding bar in the ground, and the green ground wire goes to the ground/neutral bar in the main panel. I'm going to add a ground bar to the other side of the panel as well.

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Here's the main panel. The two hot wires go to the 100 Amp breaker, and the neutral wire and green ground wire go to the ground/neutral bar. You can see where I had to add a connector to be able to attach the 1-gauge wire to the ground/neutral bar.

I put anti-oxidant on all the aluminum wire connections.

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If you see anything wrong with these connections, please let me know.

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You can see the slip coupling as well as where I had to cut the concrete. I still need to secure the conduit to the house. Note the recess in the side of the house. This is likely where the original breaker panel was.

I have a left-over piece of conduit, so I'm going to fill it with concrete and install it as a bollard to protect the electrical conduit when I fill this area back in with concrete.

Now Let's Discuss the Disaster Waiting to Happen!

I was apprehensive about opening the panel because my experience with the electrical done here has not been positive.

As I looked, my fears turned into reality.

There is no bushing protecting these wires from the metal edges of these two holes. I need to find a way to put a bushing in there, and I'm hoping I can find a split bushing to put around the opening without having to disconnect all of the wires.

I'm disappointed in myself for not measuring these holes before I put the cover back on, so I know what I need to look for.

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Here, a gecko got inside and electrocuted itself to death.

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The wires come out of the back of the panel and then behind the siding. There was an old bird nest behind the panel just waiting for one of these wires to short out, catch it on fire, and burn the house down. I cleaned most of it out.

This gap shouldn't be here. This panel should be mounted in this opening, but it doesn't fit.

You can see where a piece of cut aluminum is up against the wire below.

I'm not an electrician. I'm not anything close to being an electrician, but I feel like I'm more of an electrician than whoever did this work.

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