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Above 1200 Sq/FT Garage Refurb®

Wokspaces above 1200 squarefeet.
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

This is what is what I will adding to the garage, a SQ D QO 200 amp box.



A few of the breakers included with the box and the others that will fill it.

 

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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Oh boy, here we go . .. .




What have I got myself into :headscrat

 

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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Can't wait to see the finished product. I'm getting ready to surface Mount a Siemens 100A in my garage.

Good luck on your future project there.


Looks like fun!

Yeah fun alright. ;)


Looking great Eric.
Thanks.

Looks like you got a rat's nest there ! EEK

Yeah it's a bit of a mess or least it looks like it. While the power is back on, the only thing that is hooked up are part of the lights and the air compressor. Hopefully, I can get most of the wiring back in without having to extend anything. I truly wish it was a new build with all new wiring so I could make it look neater but I have to make do with what I have.
 

wide2k

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Re: garage refurb

Let me get this straight. Your background is not in construction. You watched home improvement shows on tv and you went and did this to your garage.
You are ...garage... hero level.
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Not much progress today, I had a few things to do in town, stopped by a friend's house to BS and went out to eat with my parents. I did get a few circuits hooked back up and still have another 7-8 to go. One of them, the one for the welder, I have to cut and extend the conduit and rewire it.

I did snap a few pictures of the new meter base and mast.


From a different angle.


You can see that I used a siding block for mounting the anchor up top. I actually took the anchor apart and added a longer 5" lag screw. This allowed it to go through the 2x material inside the block, the 7/16" OSB, the 3/4" wood siding and still grab plenty of meat in the wall stud.

I had made up the mounting plate behind the meter base last year and wrapped it with coil stock. The one issue I had with doing that is the offset it created. I used a premade offset and still had to bend the PVC conduit. I also used a siding block for the conduit/LB at the bottom to make a clean siding installation. Using the siding blocks, above and below, will allow me to trim and fit the siding where it should look better.
 

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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

This was the old Pushmatic panel.




Here's the new SQ D QO panel.



Now just a little caulking, trim work and some paint on the surrounding area.
 

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becciasm

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Re: garage refurb

Holy cow. 66 pages. 7 days (at work). Loved every minute of it. I'd like to know more detail about how you wired everything, as re/wiring is something I'm going to take on in my garage, when the time comes.

Thanks for all the sharing of your work!
 

crashclement

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Re: garage refurb

Well Mr. Nutt's/Eric, No Disrespect on my beginning name choices. I just didn't know how you wanted to be addressed. This is my 1st post ever on the GJ. I only have one regret posting you as my 1st post and that is, I didn't find the GJ sooner in my life. When I started reading your build/refurb it brought back my teen years when I began working in a fillin' station as my first job. I would like to thank you for your in depth breakdown of your adventures and patience while making a great/beautiful place for your whole family to live in and for you to have some alone time in your great man cave/wood shop/garage on occasions!!!!!! Thanks again, Joe ps. Thanks for your service to our country and the people of your community!
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Holy cow. 66 pages. 7 days (at work). Loved every minute of it. I'd like to know more detail about how you wired everything, as re/wiring is something I'm going to take on in my garage, when the time comes.

Thanks for all the sharing of your work!

Thanks for the compliments and glad you enjoyed the thread.

What type of details would you like to know ?

I ran everything in 2" conduit, 4/0 and 2/0 for the neutral. Everything inside the breaker box was put on separate circuits like it was before. Other than the air comp and welder, I used 12/2 romex (NM) for all my wiring through out the garage.

If you have specific questions about wiring for your upcoming project, I'll answer what I can but the electrical section here is filled great knowledge coming from awesome and experienced guys.
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Well Mr. Nutt's/Eric, No Disrespect on my beginning name choices. I just didn't know how you wanted to be addressed. This is my 1st post ever on the GJ. I only have one regret posting you as my 1st post and that is, I didn't find the GJ sooner in my life. When I started reading your build/refurb it brought back my teen years when I began working in a fillin' station as my first job. I would like to thank you for your in depth breakdown of your adventures and patience while making a great/beautiful place for your whole family to live in and for you to have some alone time in your great man cave/wood shop/garage on occasions!!!!!! Thanks again, Joe ps. Thanks for your service to our country and the people of your community!

Eric or Nutts is fine. :beer:


I understand your regret not finding GJ sooner, I felt the same thing when I found this place. It's a very informative and entertaining site with some great knowledge available just for asking.

As boring as I thought I was making this thread at times, I was hoping to make it easy for others to understand and pass on somethings that I have learned during my project. I've learned more from everyone here than I have passed on.

Thank you for the compliments, they are greatly appreciated.
 

becciasm

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Re: garage refurb

Thanks for the compliments and glad you enjoyed the thread.

What type of details would you like to know ?

I ran everything in 2" conduit, 4/0 and 2/0 for the neutral. Everything inside the breaker box was put on separate circuits like it was before. Other than the air comp and welder, I used 12/2 romex (NM) for all my wiring through out the garage.

If you have specific questions about wiring for your upcoming project, I'll answer what I can but the electrical section here is filled great knowledge coming from awesome and experienced guys.

I'll definitely check out the electrical section - been browsing there as well.

I don't have specific details, yet - once i start into my garage renno i'll check back with you - but I'll start by asking how 'easy' it was for you to switch the circuit breakers, the mains, everything outside..?

I've only ever done some basic lighting wiring in college, but nothing to do with adding breakers or replacing the whole box/main line..

I've subscribed to this thread for continued updates!

-Steve
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

I'll definitely check out the electrical section - been browsing there as well.

I don't have specific details, yet - once i start into my garage renno i'll check back with you - but I'll start by asking how 'easy' it was for you to switch the circuit breakers, the mains, everything outside..?

I've only ever done some basic lighting wiring in college, but nothing to do with adding breakers or replacing the whole box/main line..

I've subscribed to this thread for continued updates!

-Steve


It's not for the weak at heart and does take some knowledge to do it. Some people would rather pay to have it done as they don't want their hands in the breaker box.

I have done this before on the house, my step-dad is a retired electrician and I worked PT for a guy about 6-8 months. Does it make me an expert, no, not at all. I do feel comfortable working in a breaker box, but don't get complacent.

You'll need to contact your power company (if you can do it yourself by code) to have the service disconnected at the mast/service entrance, AEP (my electric supplier) charges $150 for this service. I started pulling circuits out of the box before the service was disconnect to save time. After the power was cut, I pulled the rest out of the box, removed the breaker box, took down the old service cable on the outside along with the old meter base.

I made sure to install the new meter base so it was attached to a wall stud, same thing with the anchor point. That anchor point definetly needs to go into a stud as it's holding the weight of the wire. The conduit is basically the same as doing any other plumbing. After the conduit is up, it's a matter of pulling the new service wire, it's stiff and hard to bend, an extra set of hands will make it easier to make sure you don't scrap the insulation off the wire as you pull it.
 

Graham08

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Re: garage refurb

The new install looks great! You won't regret going with a QO box.

After the conduit is up, it's a matter of pulling the new service wire, it's stiff and hard to bend, an extra set of hands will make it easier to make sure you don't scrap the insulation off the wire as you pull it.

If you're going very far, upping the size of the conduit from 2" to 2-1/2" can make a world of difference. We did this for my new service, and it still was a lot of work to pull 4/0, 4/0, 2/0 through it.
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

The new install looks great! You won't regret going with a QO box.



If you're going very far, upping the size of the conduit from 2" to 2-1/2" can make a world of difference. We did this for my new service, and it still was a lot of work to pull 4/0, 4/0, 2/0 through it.



Thanks, Since I have a SQ D QO box in the house, it was a no brainer. :beer:

I was thinking about that as I was pulling wire. . . .maybe I should have used a larger conduit. WE used 2" when we did the new service on the house and I couldn't remember it being that hard to pull. But then again, I had help.
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Since the electric service doesn't enter through the top of the box anymore, I wanted to replace the piece of OSB above it. I tore off the old, which you can see had been notched at various times for wire to pass through.





Which left a hideous hole.



Which was covered by a new piece of OSB that had it's edges caulked primer to some primer and paint which will be coming along soon.

 

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Press_Corpse

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Re: garage refurb

Eric, This garage is still coming along nicely. If you lived closer, I'd offer you a hand! I love the detailed posts and explanations you give us. Please keep us updated, Love it!
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Eric, This garage is still coming along nicely. If you lived closer, I'd offer you a hand! I love the detailed posts and explanations you give us. Please keep us updated, Love it!

Thanks for the compliments.


I put up a couple rows of siding today and trimmed around the meter base with J-channel. While I was measuring, bent down and then stood back up smacking my head on the corner of the meter base, ouch, the garage drew some blood again. Not much but enough that I had to go easy when I washed my hair tonight in the shower.

I cut off early as I had to wash up a half dozen hazmat booms at the fire house, so no more pics of progress.
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Put up 2 more courses of siding today before I decided to mow. The rest of the siding that goes up, will have to be done off ladders and plank.



Here's another picture I'll share. Like I've said before, I'm no professional but I suppose it'll work for me.




* If this was new construction, I would have had plenty of wire. Seeing as this was an upgrade, (from a previous upgrade) I did have to lengthen a few of the ground wires inside the box, which is why you are seeing the wire nuts.
 

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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

After today, I'll be in a holding pattern for a couple of days. I need to borrow the siding brake from the wife's cousin. I'm fortunate that he's not using it and allows me to get some use out of it.
I went up as far as I could with the siding. I have to wrap the corner on the south end and put J-channel up. I'm also thinking I should borrow a co-workers aluminum plank. My 2x12 gets a little unnerving and isn't quite long enough unless I play the ladder shuffle.

Getting a few course up to meet the front overhang. I'm not sure why I didn't do it sooner but I added some tar paper over the bare OSB.



Where I stopped today and about 1 square of siding to go.


I took another picture because the one above was taken into the Sun, which is never a good thing.


If you notice the J-channel that appears to be too long, it is. It will get trimmed off once I wrap that corner and put up some vertical J-channel.
 

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dave67fd

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Re: garage refurb

Eric,
Glad to see your staying with the upgrades. Sweet install on the new service and the sidewall reconstruction. Keep up the great work sir.
 

GRS DESIGN

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Re: garage refurb

Hi Eric....I am new to GJ and have been following your thread with great interest. You look like you have done a fantastic restoration on the garage and also your house...I know its all about the garage but do you have any before and after pics of your house from the inside...cheers Glenn (GRS Design) down under NSW Australia
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Hi Eric....I am new to GJ and have been following your thread with great interest. You look like you have done a fantastic restoration on the garage and also your house...I know its all about the garage but do you have any before and after pics of your house from the inside...cheers Glenn (GRS Design) down under NSW Australia


Glenn,
I only took a few pictures of the inside and those were with a regular camera, before my days of getting "modern". Most of what was done inside was paint, carpet and replace cheap luan door with solid 6 panel pine doors. There was some drywall work in the front room, insulation, replacement windows and electrical upgrades. Nothing earth-shattering, just normal upgrades.

Thanks for the compliments.
 

Drewstang

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Bedford, KY
Re: garage refurb

I spent over an hour viewing this thread Monday. You have done an amazing job and given me some ideas to organize my own garage. I'm currently on a break from Volunteer Fire Fighting but waiting on my app to be processed to go back. I do alot of light and siren installs for other fire fighters who don't know how so organizing connectors and screws has been tough. I'm going to borrom your bin idea and add a wire spool rack to make installs a little easier. Thanks for the ideas and keep up the good work.
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

Drew,

Use any or all my ideas, nothing is patented or copyrighted. I post them here to help out my fellow GJers. Thanks for the compliments.
 
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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

While I was adding apiece of J-channel the other day on the end of the front over hang, I didn't like the way the corner trim looked. I guess it was done last year and I should have put up the J-channel first. It bothered me enough that I wanted to replace it.

This would be the corner I'm talking about, notice the gap ?


I set up the ladder, pulled a few nails and pulled back the siding out front. I had my head behind that siding. I'm sure the people passing by wondered :headscrat what I was doing.

 

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NUTTSGT

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Re: garage refurb

I made up a template yesterday transferred it to a new section of corner trim and cut it out. This is a comparison. new to old.


New corner piece installed and every back to where it should be.



I also painted over the primer around the new breaker box. I'm going to paint the blue stripe tomorrow along with painting over the gray at the bottom.



Post #1328 shows the unpainted areas.
 

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Thumper68

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Re: garage refurb

I set up the ladder, pulled a few nails and pulled back the siding out front. I had my head behind that siding. I'm sure the people passing by wondered :headscrat what I was doing.

09052013eastcorner003.jpg

You should know better than to set up a ladder like that!

Not trying to be an A$$, but safety first right.
 
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