The 1970's house I live in has 3 outlets and 2 circuits in the garage. One is a dedicated circuit and outlet for the FAU, the other two are being used for the garage door opener and a second fridge. Trying to weld and fit tubing/plate is a headache even with a few extension cord's and surge protectors. I've got a small roofing air compressor that I sometimes use, and about 6/10 times when it kicks on it will flip my surge protector... It gets annoying real quick lol.
I would like to be able to get a larger compressor and a plasma cutter before the end of the year, but I can't justify buying one until I fix the outlet situation in my garage.
My meter box is on the opposite side of my house, I don't think I'd be able to afford tying into it with ext conduit and new circuits.
Forget the meter box, per se. Where is the main distribution panel?
I was thinking about tying into two existing circuits that are much closer and hardly used.
Big compressor? Plasma cutter? No way!
Kludges such as you describe would not only be unworkable, they are potentially dangerous; and they can very easily keep you from being able to sell your house when the time comes.
I'm with Wyliesdiesels on this: You need to bite the bullet and do it right, with a properly sized feeder from your main panel to a (new) sub-panel in the garage, then branch circuits as appropriate from that sub panel. Your existing branch circuits which terminate in the garage can also be moved to this sub-panel; so you shouldn't have any issues with lack of breaker space in the main panel.
I take it from your comment about external conduit that your house is built on a slab? If so, that's too bad; it would be relatively easy to run the feeder through a basement or crawl space. But even so, you really don't have any other practical choice.
One is my utility room which has an unused 220 Circuit as well as the AC compressor's circuit. Both are within 5ft of the garages back wall. Anyone ever tried something like this?
IF that unused circuit is REALLY completely unused (such as, it was set up as a dedicated circuit for an electric clothes dryer, but you're now using a gas model), you MIGHT be able to extend that line out to the garage to feed a small sub-panel. You would need to remove the existing socket, securely make your connections in the existing box, then cap the box with a blanking plate so that there would be no possibility of plugging in a dryer or similar. And you would be limited by whatever size wire is feeding that old outlet -- which probably means no more than a 30A sub-panel, which won't go very far when you start talking about things like heavy machinery (most folks use 90-100A to feed shops such as you are apparently gravitating toward; some "squeak by" with 60A). Still, it would be better than nothing if you really, truly,
CAN'T do a proper feed from the main panel.
- I've got the surge protector plugged into the outlet that the fridge uses / covers. I keep forgetting to buy a short extension cord so I can use the outlet without the surge protector or moving the fridge out. Not the smartest thing I've done though lol
Well then, at the very least, go buy a short heavy-gauge (AWG 12 or better) extension cord, RIGHT NOW. That is so easy and so cheap that it is silly to even contemplate other "upgrades" until you are at least correctly using whatever you've got now. If two feet will do the trick, you can solve this problem for four dollars:
http://www.harborfreight.com/three-way-grounded-power-outlet-45185.html
If you need more length, then perhaps:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_68218-66906-UTP511815_0__
-Ahh ok, the AC is hardly ever turned on so I figured I might be able to tie into it and use it when it's not in use. Those duel 50 amps labeled AC got my attention when I opened the box, seemed doable as long as I wasn't using it with the AC on.
You can't count on that. What's to stop someone else (say, your wife) from deciding it's getting a bit toasty inside and turning on the A/C while you're working in the garage? Besides, it would inherently represent an overloaded circuit, from a code POV.
-Not sure about what the 240 is like, adding a sub panel to and running from that would be great though. The plug is labeled as 30A , and there are two 30A fuses, I know one of them is for the 240v in the utility room at least. Not sure on the wire size.
If you meant "fuses" literally, you very probably have larger issues than was initially apparent. You
MIGHT even be looking at replacing your electrical service entirely (which would at least let you do things REALLY right; but it won't be cheap).
Thanks for reading!
