I was wanting/needing to wire my garage with 220 or 230 volts so I could upgrade to big boy's tools down the road.... how would you go about doing this without paying an electrican to come and do the work?

 

If you don't have any clue about how to do this already, you should probably hire an electrician. One thing that might help save money though is to run the wire yourself, and just get the electrician to hook it up at the panel. You have to use cable appropriate for 220V at the current level you're planning for. Get that, cut holes for outlet boxes whereever you'd like them, and run the cable (in daisy-chain fashion, from one outlet box to the next), ending at the service panel. This will probably involve a lot of crawling around in your attic, so be ready for that.

 

would something like this work then?

http://www.dvdoverseas.com/sto....html

 

Allmost all wire that you buy from let say home depot is going to be rated for 600v. What you need to worry about it the diameter on the wire and the length of your run.
First you need to know you max load (amps) you will be drawing. From that you can buy the proper wire size. If you buy to small you will damage your welder. If you buy to big you are wasting money. When running anything more than 120volts (standerd outlet in your house) you should stick to one wire from the box to one outlet. Unless you want to put a few in your garage so you dont have to run a long cord. But you can only use ONE outlet at a time.

 

Ideally you would put a subpanel in your garage.

Does your house have 100 or 200 amp service?

What kind of tools do you plan on running? Compressor, welder, other power tools?

Answer those Q's and we will go from there.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nitroice40 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Allmost all wire that you buy from let say home depot is going to be rated for 600v. What you need to worry about it the diameter on the wire and the length of your run.
First you need to know you max load (amps) you will be drawing. From that you can buy the proper wire size. If you buy to small you will damage your welder. If you buy to big you are wasting money. When running anything more than 120volts (standerd outlet in your house) you should stick to one wire from the box to one outlet. Unless you want to put a few in your garage so you dont have to run a long cord. But you can only use ONE outlet at a time.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Voltage is not the issue when talking about multiple loads on one circuit. The voltage will be the same at all the outlets, provided that excessive wire resistance isn't a problem.

Like someone else mentioned you should go to home depot buy a 60 amp sub panel a length of 6/3 NMD90 rated for 300V and the appropriate breakers you will need, do all the work yourself and have an electrician come to cut in the panels. You will save $ and the job will be done right.

Tell us the equipment specs, distance from the main panel to the sub service and someone can help you.

 

I don't have any 220 volt equipment yet, but plan to get a nice welder, plasma cutter, and maybe an large compressor...

btw, you guys didn't say anything about that little inverter box...

 

I wired my garage last summer. I didn't really have too much electrical experience before tackling the project.

It's not too complicated, but is DANGEROUS. You definitely want to know what you are doing. Bits and pieces of info off of forums is not enough. My public library was a great resource for me. There are tons of books about circuits, replacing wiring, wiring new projects, and simplifying the nat'l code.

The head of the electrical dept at Home Depot was very knowledgable and gave me alot of good advice about the different wiring choices and conduit types.

I have a separate garage that didn't have any service. I just used a 30amp double breaker at the main box to run service to a subpanel in the garage. Ran the line from the main box to the garage in a 18" deep trench, using 30amp underground wire in PVC conduit to a small 6 bus subpanel in the garage. From the subpanel I have a 30amp 220 circuit for a 60gal compressor, 20amp circuit for 2 outlets for power tools and my 110v MIG, and 15 amp circuit for overhead and security lights.

30amp 240 is not crazy power, it would not be suitable for a 220 TIG or Plasma cutter. You need to figure out what tools you would like to use, and what their power demands are.

 

30 amps is a bit small. You could not run a mig and a compressor at the same time. Stay at least 60 amps. You will be fine.

Just to let you know I am an electrician and I own my own company. So I if you have any more question fell free to ask

 

My garage is a small 1 car garage. Not a full sized shop. There will only be one person working in there, me. I only have two hands. I'm not wielding the welder and the impact simultaneously. I don't know about you, but I only use one tool at a time.

You are right about picking the right size service for the load you plan on putting on it. I have a 85 ft run from the main panel to the garage, and 60amp wire and appropriate conduit more than doubled, close to tripled the price of materials.

Given the size of the shop, the fact that it's a starter home, the 30amp seemed like the best choice.

The breaker at the main panel has never tripped.

 

85' is quite a haul. You will definately need to oversize your wiring to make up for the losses over that length. Also, I would suggest a larger breaker as well - again due to the length.


Modified by mrchaos at 8:57 AM 3/3/2006