Conduit or Romex in floor?

[Barry Londrigan]

While my plans are nowhere as detailed or thought out as Frank's great layout plans were, I am working hard to "do it right". With my floor progressing, I am sort of at a crossroad. I had originally planned on leaving a space between floor sections so that I could run conduit (off the wall where it is black in the picture) through it and then tee off and run left and right down the center of the garage floor. As I progressed, I thought "Why not just run Romex?" Is there any advantage of one over the other?

[Mark Singer]

If you run conduit there is a lot more flexibility...you could pull wire for 220 etc,

[lou sansone]

I agree with mark, and this is how I wired my shop as well. You then have the option of pulling in more conductors ( with in the code ) and you can pull out unused circuits and then add some larger conductors if needed.

lou

[Michael Ballent]

If you run conduit there is a lot more flexibility...you could pull wire for 220 etc,

I have to agree, conduit will make your life easier down the road, just make sure that you do not short change yourself by getting one that is too narrow, you want space so the wires can easily move and make the bends. If you can swing it try to run the wires as you assemble the conduit so then you do not have to fight running the wires through. If you cannot run the wires at least run some string through them so you can pull the wire(s) with the string.
DAMHIKT :D

[George Summers]

And every time you pull a wire with that string, attach and pull another string along with the wire. That way you will always have a string to use for the next pull.

George

[Tim Sproul]

Romex.

Just run 10/2 or 12/2. And run multiples to each receptacle if you feel the need. You'll have plenty of expansion in the future.

Regarding 220 - you can easily convert an existing 110V into a 220V by simply replacing the single pole breaker with a 220V double pole, taping the white neutral with black tape to show it is now hot, and connect to the second pole on the breaker. Current ratings will still be the same - ie, if it was a 15A max 110V, it is still 15A max at 220V.

Really, Romex is much easier. Why do you think nearly all (if not all) home builders run romex and there isn't even one inch of conduit in homes? And yes, I've done both.

Certainly, you can run more wires later on if you lay down conduit...but you're limited to existing receptacles and how many circuits can you stuff into one spot???!!!! I'd rather run unused Romex to each receptacle now than lay in conduit.

If you run conduit - skip 3/4 or even 1 inch. Get 1 1/2 or larger diameter. It doesn't cost that much more considering you're not laying miles of it and it will make it easier to pull wire as well as provide a lot more room for multiple circuits.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Romex.

Just run 10/2 or 12/2. And run multiples to each receptacle if you feel the need. You'll have plenty of expansion in the future.

Regarding 220 - you can easily convert an existing 110V into a 220V by simply replacing the single pole breaker with a 220V double pole, taping the white neutral with black tape to show it is now hot, and connect to the second pole on the breaker. Current ratings will still be the same - ie, if it was a 15A max 110V, it is still 15A max at 220V.

Really, Romex is much easier. Why do you think nearly all (if not all) home builders run romex and there isn't even one inch of conduit in homes? And yes, I've done both.

Certainly, you can run more wires later on if you lay down conduit...but you're limited to existing receptacles and how many circuits can you stuff into one spot???!!!! I'd rather run unused Romex to each receptacle now than lay in conduit.

If you run conduit - skip 3/4 or even 1 inch. Get 1 1/2 or larger diameter. It doesn't cost that much more considering you're not laying miles of it and it will make it easier to pull wire as well as provide a lot more room for multiple circuits.

Time,

I agree with you on this but don't understand one part. What will running multiple wires to each box do for you? Can you explain how you'd use them in the future? Thanks Alan

[Tim Sproul]

What will running multiple wires to each box do for you? Can you explain how you'd use them in the future?

I don't know...but that seems to be the main arguement for using conduit. If you run romex, you can simply add an extra, unused wire to get around the issue of running more wire to a receptacle/switch in the future.

[Jamie Buxton]

I'm with Tim on this one. The floor's nature provides enough flexibility for future changes. If you need to make changes, cut a hole in the plywood and fish some more romex. Or cut out a whole panel, run your additional romex, and screw the panel back down. This is a shop floor, and a few new seams don't make any difference -- to me, at least.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

I don't know...but that seems to be the main arguement for using conduit. If you run romex, you can simply add an extra, unused wire to get around the issue of running more wire to a receptacle/switch in the future.
I know your name is not time

[Jeff Sudmeier]

The only reason I could think of running extra romex to the boxes is so that you could take out a single gang box and put in a double and have two circuits.

Many people are a fan of conduit, I am not one of them. I much perfer working with romex, except in certain applications. One of them is an underground feed from one building to another. There put in at least 2 inch conduit so that you can pull more wires later if you want to. Ex(Running from home panel to shop subpanel. Burry it all in conduit and later you can pull another wire from the home panel if you need to)

I don't see the advantage of conduit in your floor, unless you wanted to convert a 20 amp 110 outlet to a 30 amp 220v outlet. In this case you would be able to use the existing wires to pull new, heavier wires to the outlet. (This assumes that you run a dedicated set of wires to each outlet, which you wouldn't.)

All that said, I would run it in romex and be sure that I had a way to get access to the floor to expand if the need arrose. (One way to do this would be to drill large holes to run the romex through and leave a fish line from the box to an outlet in the hole. This way you could pull a new wire)??