Running wire to my garage
 

The po of my house ran a wire over to the garage to run lights and an outlet or two, in an effort to make everything safe he buried it under an inch of dirt. the garage is currently on a 15 amp shared breaker with most of the outlets in the house.

Since I plan to do some more serious work in the garage I am thinking of an appropriate solution to bring more and safer power out to the garage. My idea right now is to add a 60 amp breaker to the panel in the house and run the wire about 55 feet to the garage where I will have a sub panel and a separate ground rod. I currently have a small compressor and a 120 miller welder in the garage that will be my big power draws. I'd like to get a bigger compressor down the road which is why I would like to have 240 volts and 60 amps to work with in the garage.

Would 4 wires (red, black, white, and green) of 6 awg be appropriate to bring 240 volts of 60 amp service to the garage sub panel? Here is the wire I plan on purchasing:

6 THHN Stranded Copper Black 2500' - 6THHNCSTRBLAX2500, AWG, , Building Wire, Cables, Cords - Platt Electric Supply

I've already dug the trench 18 inches and have PVC conduit ready to go. Can't wait to be able to run my little compressor without blowing the fuse in the house all the time.

Thanks for advice on the wire and any other thoughts you may have.

Rich

Go over to the Garage Journal forums where some of us hang out. The have a sub forum just for electrical in garages. Lots and lots of threads there about this exact thing. I think to save money on the feed, several of them are using mobile home cable.

Home Depot or Lowes sell UF-B direct burial cable by the foot. 4 conductor #6 as a romex cable instead of individual. Then your conduit is only for convenience and mechanical protection. Here we use corrigated 4" water hose as a conduit instead of needing a certified electrical conduit because the direct burial cable makes it redundant. It still might make it possible to pull the cable out to repair it if needed. #6 copper should be fine up to about 100 ft. I would talk to the local inspector first.

Thanks Milt and John,

I had forgotten about those forums since jacks garage was posted over there. I will check them out tomorrow.

After nearly driving a pick through the previous owners wiring I decided to go with conduit for safety, and for easier future wiring options.

IIRC I ran 4 gauge wire to my garage, buried 18" in conduit. The main panel to sub panel distance was about 75 feet. I also ran a 70 amp fuse in the main panel, which might have been a bit much since I only have a 100 amp feed from the street. I figured that since I live alone, I could only use so much power at once! SmileWavy

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/594724-home-electrical-advice-240v-garage.html

Is the thread on my project that was similar to yours. 60A to subpanel, 120 and 240 circuits (don't forget the switched ceiling outlets for lights and the unswitched for tools), separate ground (important), etc.

I'm not sure the separate ground rod at the garage is per code.

IIRC The subpanel shouldn't be grounded. You should have a ground conductor back to your service and it should be bonded there. Your neutrals should float in your subpanel.

220, 221, whatever it takes.

You guys are slipping.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1339170116.jpg

If you have a spare 10 minutes, read this:
Grounding Rods - Attached vs. Detatched structure - The Garage Journal Board
Goes to show you that there will be debate on whether water rolls off a duck's back.

Here's one that has it all:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147659&highlight=subpanel