I have a 4 car detached garage that has finally been cleared out so it can be used for what it is intended for, a garage. Over the past week I have been going through all of my spare parts and trying to setup my benches. But the thought keeps coming back to me before I start working on auto projects is: Do I have enough power?
The garage has a sub-panel breaker box with 2 breakers at 20amps each, one for the lights and one for the 1 outlet(yes 1 outlet in the entire garage). Now I am adding outlets and that is not the worry, the worry is the breaker in the house. The breaker inside the house is a single 30amp breaker for the whole garage. Now I was doing some adding up and well I think I will be pushing the breaker limits.
Say I am in the garage at night with my welder pulling 20 amps(pushing the single breaker??), with the lights on pulling 4.1 amps 100watts x 5/120, and someone walks by setting off the motion lights/outside bay lights which would pull and additional 110 watts*6/120 5.5 amps. My grand total of amps in the garage would be 29.6 at a minimum if I dont have the radio or another drop light going. I think that is pushing the limits of a 45 year old breaker and the roughly 200 feet of wire between the garage and the breaker in the house.
I do plan on pulling the panel off in the garage and inside the house to measure the wire to see if I can put in a bigger breaker on the house side and add another breaker on the garage side. But is what I have enough? or am I just not thinking about this right?
The garage has a sub-panel breaker box with 2 breakers at 20amps each, one for the lights and one for the 1 outlet(yes 1 outlet in the entire garage). Now I am adding outlets and that is not the worry, the worry is the breaker in the house. The breaker inside the house is a single 30amp breaker for the whole garage. Now I was doing some adding up and well I think I will be pushing the breaker limits.
Say I am in the garage at night with my welder pulling 20 amps(pushing the single breaker??), with the lights on pulling 4.1 amps 100watts x 5/120, and someone walks by setting off the motion lights/outside bay lights which would pull and additional 110 watts*6/120 5.5 amps. My grand total of amps in the garage would be 29.6 at a minimum if I dont have the radio or another drop light going. I think that is pushing the limits of a 45 year old breaker and the roughly 200 feet of wire between the garage and the breaker in the house.
I do plan on pulling the panel off in the garage and inside the house to measure the wire to see if I can put in a bigger breaker on the house side and add another breaker on the garage side. But is what I have enough? or am I just not thinking about this right?