Recent content by Phil De

Well, all of this grounding business is quite confusing. The job is done. The plastic subpanel is installed and the feeder cirucit (120 volt) is treated as simply an extension of the house circuit to the garage. This feeder circuit eminated from a 30 amp breaker in the house main panel. At...

If you are going to spend time in your garage (hobby shop or the like) you may wish to include a TV cable in your run. I did and enjoy having the cable TV available. My wife and I also use hand held communicators between the house and detached garage/shop.

I should have made it clear in my original post that the 120 volt two wire (hot, neutral and ground) feed was already there. It ran a single circuit for a light in the garage and the garage door opener. The underground supply emanates from a 30 amp breaker on the main panel at the house. I...

I have a 30 amp 120v two wire plus ground feeding a subpanel in my steel detached garage. The garage has a re-bar for grounding but I assume I should use only the ground circuit from the supply line and not introduce another grounding source. Am I correct?

Leaving an air gap between the insulation sheets and the metal walls sounds like a good idea. I guess the air gap itself provides some insulating value as well .... rather like my puffy sleeping bag.

My new steel garage is sweating like mad ... the roof is insulated but the walls are not. I'm planning on insulating the walls with 1/2 inch foam sheeting from Home Depot. Cost is reasonable at $13 per 4x8 sheet. The sheeting apparently has a vapor barrier on one side. I'm most concerned...

Thanks for all of the comments. After reading them, I decided to use the MC armored cable throughout. I had not run this type of cable before so I was a little apprehensive. I already had a heavy duty cable cutter left over from sailing days and I bought an armored cable cutting tool. I also...

Thanks for the good advice. I ordered the hole cutting tool and will get on with the job!

I see that the small MC armored cable will fit through the existing 5/8 inch holes in the steel studs. In some places, I'll have to drill through the studs which seems to be a formidable task. What type drill do you use to make holes in the sturdy steel studs?

I just completed a metal 24 x 32 garage/shop building. The building is totaly detached from the residence. The building is "all" metal and the steel studs have 5/8 inch holes for wire runs. The walls and ceiling are not enclosed and will remain open. I plan to run romex for my shop tool...