Anyone put a subpanel in their (residential) garage?

[cowtown]

Hi guys,
We've moved into a new house, and I'm lucky enough to have a finished two car garage to use just as a shop area. I have put in RaceDeck tile and painted the walls and ceilings with high gloss scrubbable paint. The only problem with the garage is that it's just got a single 15A GFCI wall outlet. No 220V, and not enough amperage for compressors, welders, a lift in the future, etc.

The main house panel is mounted on the exterior wall of this garage. I'm considering mounting a sub-panel on the interior wall nearest the main panel and running a 6GA 4-conductor line to the main panel. This should give me the ability to get 220V, and also to run 20A 110V circuits to outlets. It seems that a subpanel and exposed conduit would also give me more flexibility later on to add/subtract circuits.

I'd like to do all the garage wiring with PVC conduit and junction boxes mounted to the walls. I would be doing the work myself with help and advice from an electrician friend, and getting code inspections from the city (Davis CA).

Is this a good idea, or is there a better way to wire a garage? I'm in the "thinking about it" stage, so pictures and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Colin

[Moneyguy1]

Yes I did, back east. I wired 220 and also installed circut breakers with GFC capabilities. Highly recommended for a garage area. Two 20 amp 110 circuits are sufficient for most applications, although some here may have other recommendations.

[Joeaksa]

Two years ago ran a pipe nipple through the wall to the main box and ran a subpanel into the garage.

Now we have full blown 220v for the air compressor and welder, as well as a 110v outlet ever five feet in the garage. Also have spaces for more lighting and just last weekend used power from here for motion detector lighting in the driveway to keep the young criminals away from the car in the drive at night.

Good upgrade to do!

[Superman]

I've done this to my last two garages. I think I've used 6 ga cabling (four-cunductor) and I think it is fed by a 70 amp breaker. You may need a separate ground, but my garages have not had the main panel attached to them. I did, in each instance, drive a couple of ground rods for the 'service' panel. I did not connect the ground and neutral circuits at the service panel. They are, of course, connected at the main panel.

[stevepaa]

Good idea. I used the thin wall conduit rather than PVC to feed all the outlets. Is PVC legal up there?

[craigster59]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Good idea. I used the thin wall conduit rather than PVC to feed all the outlets. Is PVC legal up there?

I was thinking the same thing. Personally I'd use rigid EMT rather than PVC for surface mounted conduit and boxes. Not sure if PVC is code.

[legion]

Previous owner of my house put in a subpanel when he added on the 3rd garage bay. I don't have any 220 sockets, but I also haven't checked if 220 is wired to the subpanel.

[id10t]

Heh. I just keep my generator out there... its got 220 on it and 110 too

[cowtown]

Originally posted by stevepaa
Good idea. I used the thin wall conduit rather than PVC to feed all the outlets. Is PVC legal up there?

I'm not sure, I'll have to check. There are no local regs against it, so I need to check out the national code I guess. I wandered over to Home Depot today and it looks like the metal conduit is 10X the price. A lot of contractor types were buying PVC (maybe for in-ground stuff, though). The subpanels are surprisingly inexpensive.

I also just stumbled on something interesting on my city web site - there is a requirement that there be a blocked off junction box in a parking stall, with a fish that leads all the way to the main panel through conduit, appropriate for 220V. I think my town was anticipating us all driving electric cars; I'll have to look at using that location for the subpanel.

Thanks for all the input so far.
Colin