Shop Electrical Questions - need electricians opinion

[Steve Canada]

Ok! Here goes:

I have an electrican who I hired to wire my new shop (coverted 24x26 garage). The garage is wired and complete, but not live. I'm responsible for getting the cable from garage to MAIN in my house, without hooking them up.

Here's where it gets sticky. The current MAIN box is full. It's an older GE, and innitially, we were going to pony a sub in the house to hold the breakers I needed to pull from the main to drop in the 60amp. (for shop)

We decided tho, that it would be better to just replace the MAIN entirely to keep clutter down, and to allow space for a future basement reno I have planned. Current MAIN is 12/24, new box is 32/64.

So, all fine and dandy. As it works out tho, if I upgrade the MAIN I now need to ground possibly six, 2-wire lines in my house. To do this I can:

1 - Install GFCI breakers for each 2-wire line $$$
2 - Install 6 GFCI Dead fronts and feed through these. (one for each line) Is what you're calling a CFI Blank? $$
3 -Swap the first receptacle on the ungrounded line with a GFCI receptacle, this will protect all downstream receptacles. $

I like the lowbuck recepticle option (3), as I can locate these myself (reducing cost) and this will further reduce clutter at the main.

The electrician likes option 2 since it's the less work for him, and the middle ground in terms of cost. (Although, I didn't tell him I'd do the receptcle locating).

WHICH OPTION WOULD YOU FOLKS DO?

PS: I also discovered I need to Bond the Gas and waters lines too :(

[Don Baer]

Option 3 is fine.

[Steve Canada]

Any suggestions on how to easily locate the first recepticle on the line?

[Don Baer]

1.Turn off the breaker
2 Disconnet the hot from one of the plugs.
3 Tape the hot wire or use a wire nut to insulate it.
4 Turn breaker back on and check each receptical for power.
5 Turn off breaker.
6 Reconnect hot lead

Repeat as necessary until you find the one that feeds the rest of em. :D

[Dan Oelke]

I would go with option 1 or 3. Option 3 is pretty common in a retrofit operation. Option 1 is a little cleaner - but then I don't like the looks of the big red and black buttons on my outlets. Option 2 sounds like a big time kludge - it works but it seems so wierd.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Amazinly here, locals don't want gas lines bonded. I think it is because most of newer supply lines are plastic and aren't really "grounded" In case of a failure, the gas lines in house could become electrically hot. Not a pretty thought.

[Ken Garlock]

Amazinly here, locals don't want gas lines bonded. I think it is because most of newer supply lines are plastic and aren't really "grounded" In case of a failure, the gas lines in house could become electrically hot. Not a pretty thought.

Even, back in the dark ages, when I was growing up in Ohio, it was illegal to put an electrical ground on a natural gas black pipe line. Since just about all homes had basements, the water line on the city side of the meter was commonly used. As a guess, if the water line couplings became corroded and would not conduct, the water in the pipe was sure to. OTOH a corroded gas line coupling could make for a hot pipe and possibly sparks.

Steve, if your electrican is going to replace your distribution panel (breaker box) have him use a Square-D QO series panel, NOT the cheaper Homeline panel. Both are available at the local borg.

[Ben Grunow]

I vote for the breakers. This allows anyone to troubleshoot a no power situation without knowing where the gfi plugs are (the first outlet in each line might be anywhere). Imagine your wife blowing the breaker using her hairdryer and paging you in a meeting to figure out how to turn it back on. I might be nuts (Im obviously nuts) but disconnects should be in the panel when possible.

[Don Baer]

Ben when a GFCI trip it's very easy to find, the red button is sticking out. He is trying to save money and #3 meets code.

[Steve Canada]

Ken,

What is the difference. The panel I got is an Seimans X-press Pack, Combination Load center, with all the breakers included. XP32100

[chester stidham]

I would go with #1 and use the time saved to do something more fun like make saw dust, but if you look at the cost of GFI plugs and brakers it's not worth the time to ground the first braker if the rest are not grounded then the first won't be. you have to feed the grounds back to your grounding bar what are you thinking.

[Rob Russell]

I would go with #1 and use the time saved to do something more fun like make saw dust, but if you look at the cost of GFI plugs and brakers it's not worth the time to ground the first braker if the rest are not grounded then the first won't be. you have to feed the grounds back to your grounding bar what are you thinking.

Ya know Chester, I consider myself to be somewhat electrically educated and I'll admit - I don't understand what you're trying to say. Would you mind clarifying your post?

Steve,

Option #1 is certainly the cleanest, although the most expensive. The only "problem" you might run into with option #3 is whether or not you have adequate space in the boxes to easily install a GFI receptacle at the head of the circuit.

When I say "adequate space", I don't mean by code I mean in terms of jamming in the much larger GFI receptacle in place of the smaller receptacle that was there before. Even with only 2 conductors coming in and 2 going out, it can be a real push to shove a GFI into a 14 cubic inch box and that's what I'd guess you have if the wiring is old enough so it's 2 conductors w/o an equipment grounding conductor. I ran into this doing work on my family cottage.

If you don't mind spending the extra $200 or so, option #1 is certainly a lot easier (pricing based on $15 for a GFI recep, $55 for a SqD QO-series GFI breaker).

Rob

[Ben Grunow]

I hear you Don but if 5 circuits are set up with lead outlet GFIs they could be behind the couch and dresser and who knows where depending on how the house was wired. To me this could lead to confusion for anyone who didnt do the wiring. I cont know what the cost difference would be but maybe it would be too expensive my way- plus if the circuits are general outlet circuits they will probably never be put to the test anyway so maybe it doesnt matter. I still would go for the breakers though, just MHO.