Another Sub Panel Question

[Brett Hoffman]

I know, get a licensed electrician and a permit blah blah blah. My cousin is a master election, but I wanted to seem at least somewhat educated before I start having him help me. :)

I want to put in a sub panel in my attached garage. I’m trying to figure out the way to run the electric lines from the main panel the sub panel.

It seems to be much easier for me to run the wires in conduit in the basement, exit the house (obviously, dig the conduit in the ground, it’s only about five feet or so to the garage) and go back into the garage.

The other way is to run from the main panel and go through the wall between the house and garage, but then on the garage’s side there’s the finished drywall, the sheathing behind that, and the insulation. I wanted to run a 1¼" conduit and trying to center that in the wall without ripping the whole wall out seems like a lot of work. I also don’t really want the panel there anyway, since it’s not in a convenient location.

Do people run the conduit outside the house and then back in garage like that, or do they do it the much harder way? Going out of the house and back in adds probably 20 feet, but the sub panel would be in a much better location and digging 5 feet in the ground for the conduit seems less labor intensive than tearing the firewall out between the house/garage and putting it all back

Is there any sort of NEC code that says I can't do that?

Thanks.

[Mike Henderson]

I ran mine outside the house in conduit. And I attached the conduit to the side of the house. It's on the mechanicals side of the house (where the air conditioner is) so it doesn't show or stand out that much. It's also short, maybe five or six feet. One suggestion. When you calculate the wire gauge you need from your main panel to the sub panel, go one size bigger in case you ever want to increase the capacity in the subpanel. For such a short run it won't cost much - but it will be a bit harder to pull. Just some insurance.

Mike

[Patrick Maloney]

I was able to run mine from the main panel in the basement, along the floor joists into the crawl space, and then up through conduit into the bottom of the sub-panel. The top of the crawl space was a little higher than the bottom of the garage wall, so I was able to exit the crawl space and turn 90 degrees up to the sub-panel. My house is a mid 70's two-story.

[Jim O'Dell]

I guess my question is where you would exit and re-enter, if you went outside the house, would this be a possible place for water intrusion? If so, I'd want to avoid that if I could. How often will you be in the breaker box if you put it in the spot that's not as convenient? Would it be in the way of something else there? Remember, where ever you put it, you need 3' clearance in front of it for access. So no cabinets. (unlike where the one in the house was...in my closet with a clothes rod in front of it!!!:confused: ) This kept me from mounting my box where I wanted it in my shop, and where it had to go will keep me from spraying finishes since it had to go in the finishing room. Just something to think about. Jim.

[Brett Hoffman]

I guess my question is where you would exit and re-enter, if you went outside the house, would this be a possible place for water intrusion? If so, I'd want to avoid that if I could. How often will you be in the breaker box if you put it in the spot that's not as convenient? Would it be in the way of something else there? Remember, where ever you put it, you need 3' clearance in front of it for access. So no cabinets. (unlike where the one in the house was...in my closet with a clothes rod in front of it!!!:confused: ) This kept me from mounting my box where I wanted it in my shop, and where it had to go will keep me from spraying finishes since it had to go in the finishing room. Just something to think about. Jim.

I attached an image of the layout of the house. Where it says 8 feet, there is 8 feet of wall space between the wall and the closet. Since that space is almost useless because the closet takes up some garage space, I put my tool bench there. I could put the panel there (being the shortest distance from the main panel), but it's a very inconvenient location because my tool bench is there. Also as you mentioned, you need a 3' foot clearance to access the panel. The tool bench would then block any access to the panel and I really wanted to put some cabinets there. If I put the panel there, it would make that space completely useless.

Also the tool bench wall and the wall next to it is the firewall to the house. The walls are completely finished and painted. If I came in on the tool bench wall, I would probably have to tear a good part of the wall out just to access inside the wall. I suppose I could wall mount the panel, without putting it in the wall, but then that would look pretty ugly having all the wires coming in on conduit for the receptacles.

The wall to the right of the tool bench wall, I could put the panel on that wall, but that wall has cabinets on it. I could probably pull some cabinets out to meet the distance requirements, but then I lose some valuable cabinet space. Then the problem is accessing that side of the wall, because the stairs to the basement is on the other side and that side is finished off too, so I would have tear both sides of the wall out to put a run in there.

With all of the work, I thought that perhaps it's just easier to to run conduit (pictured red) from the main panel all the way along the side of the garage (but in the basement) to the outside, dig the trench, and go back into the garage and put the panel in that location. That whole side of the garage is not finished and i have access to to all of the walls.

I'm not too worried about any water getting in the house because you can always caulk the hole and that's the way the gas line, phone line, cable, and Satellite dish are coming in.

I guess I could go up from the basement, up to the attic then bring the line over to the garage, but I'd still like to put the panel in the same spot. The only down side to this is that it doesn't really make the run any shorter, I have blown in insulation in the attic, and I really don't want to trample that down to make the run either.

With all of that, I figure I can get the conduit ran in less than an hour. It's not that hard is it to install 5 or 6 10' conduit lines? I have to dig maybe five feet from the house to the garage, but that wouldn't take long either.

Thoughts or does the route seem really stupid? It seems a lot less labor intensive, that's for sure.

196650

[Dan Rude]

Run the Conduit, but bump it up a size and run a bigger wire. Remember you have to run 4 wires, 2 hots, 1 neutral and 1 ground.
I'm doing something similar, but it is in a basement and my shop is moving to the utility room. I priced copper and conduit with a run of about 25'. I already had copper to run to my old shop but would have needed another 50' and at about $1.85 + tax, I was able to get 2-2-2-4 AL cable. Cost was $60 and no conduit cost. It is only good for 70 Amps, but figure I will put in a 50 Amp breaker and if I need to upgrade I can. I Picked up the 100 amp sub at Habitat Restore for $10 with breakers. So the whole thing is costing me about $80 bucks + my labor. I did pull a permit for my basement wiring and putting everything on GFCI.

Dan

[Ole Anderson]

Use PVC conduit underground. Nice thing about conduit is that you can run individual conductors which is usually easier to pull and terminate than a heavy cable.

[Zane Harris]

And make sure you bury the line deep enough for both code and safety. In my locale, 18" below grade was mandated by code. I ran a buried 100 amp service from my house to the garage sub panel. And when you do purchase your wire, make sure you buy enough length. I'd rather have 10 feet too much than come up 1 inch too short!