quick electrical ??

[indyjps]

im going to be adding some electrical. want to run one through garage and one through basement. from what ive read #10 guage wire is needed for a 30 amp breaker and this is what im planning on running. 200 amp service.
the basement only has one outlet now and im finishing it off, how many outlets can i run on this circuit to the basement, basement wall attaches to the wall that runs into basement if length of cicuit matters, basement has refrigerator.
how many can i run in the garage. breaker box is in the garage if length of the run matters, will be using garage circuit for air compressor and whatever tools im running,
serperate run for welder, ill need to talk to the welder supply house for specifics. planning on getting a millermatic 210 maybe stepping up to the 251, welder on the backburner until i get the basement done.
garage is already drywalled so ill most likely run conduit outside the wall. thanks

 

[Fast Orange]

Do your self a favor-
Don't run 30A circuits for recepticle loads-run a pair of 20A circuits instead with 12 ga. wire. Put 6-8 recepts on each circuit. Also,by code,all recepts in an unfinished basement and in a garage should be GFCI protected. Use standard breakers and put a 20A feed through GFCI recept as the closest recept to the panel in each circuit.For the welder circuit,I believe you will need a 50A 2 pole breaker and 6 ga.wire to a recept that matches the welder.Check the amp requirements for your planned welder to be sure.Because ths is a dedicated circuit for a welder,GFCI protection won't be required.

George

 

[indyjps]

thanks, im finishing the basement now, will all of the outlets need to be gfci, i dont mind using them on most outlets but dont want to use one on the refrigerator outlet.
thanks

 

[rdnkjeeper]

No, just one, usually the first inline per circuit.

 

[TBM Jeep]

For the fridge outlet in the basement you should use a single outlet, not a duplex receptacle (one that has 2 plug ins). If you have a single outlet with only the appliance plugged into it (no 3-way splitters or extension cords or anything) it is considered acceptable. If you had a regular duplex outlet (not a gfi) and plugged the fridge into the top plug, you *could* possibly plug something else into the bottom plug to run a power tool or electrical cord or whatever. And if it wasnt gfi protected you could get into trouble and hurt yourself if you were standing in water, or if the tool had an internal short, or if the extension cord had a nick in the wires. If you dont have room to plug anything else into the outlet there is little to no chance for problems to occur.

As for the gfi outlet, do as stated above and put it as the first outlet in the line of outlets. You bring the supply wires out of the electrical panel to this first gfi and you can "load" the subsequent outlets off of this first gfi. So if the outlets down the line from the gfi have a problem, it will trip this first gfi which they are loaded off of. The gfi outlet has 5 terminals on the back of the outlet.....one is for ground, 2 are for the line side (from the panel), and the other 2 are for the load side (if you wanted to hook other outlets down the line off of the gfi to achieve the same gfi protection). Green is always ground, silver is neutral, and gold is hot. You can load a handfull of outlets off of a single gfi.

The length that the first device is from the electrical panel does matter. If it is over 100 or so feet (dont know exactly how long off the top of my head) you should factor in voltage drop. Typically you just would need to upsize the wire one size to the first device in the circuit, then carry on in the normal wire size from there. In a residential setting this typically is not a problem as most of the runs arent very long. In a commercial application the runs are in the multiple 100's of feet away. I've run into situations at work where we had to run #6's to feed a 20a circuit for a lighted business sign for a large retail store which was 400-500' away from the supply panel. Voltage drops off the longer you go from the panel which it was supplied from. A way around this is to upsize the wire so that more current can flow through the wire. If you just ran #12 wires to supply something 500' away by the time the current got there it would drop off and only be like 5-10 or so amps instead of the 20 amps that it might need.

Tim

 

[Stuart in MN]

As Tim mentioned above, voltage drop usually isn't an issue inside the average house (although if you have a gigantic mansion it may be a different story... ) The rule of thumb I use is once your circuit is longer than 100' then you have to start looking at the voltage drop.

Don't mess with the cheapo 29 cent receptacles in the bargain bin at Home Depot, spend a little more money for the name brand ones.

There are a number of handy voltage drop calculators online, the one I use is at http://www.electrician.com/vd_calculator.html. You just plug in the appropriate numbers and click the button.

As far as the welder outlet goes, you may as well wait until you have a welder picked out and then look at its installation manual - most of them have the wiring requirements spelled out, plus you can usually find online copies of the manuals on the manufacturer's website.

 

[indyjps]

thanks for all the advice. if i had a mansion someone else would be doing the wiring while i was in the pool. makes sense on the refrigerator outlet. im going to run all the wiring myself and have a guy i know do the final check and hookup to panel.

 

[TOMWELDS]

By code, the # of receptacles allowed on a 20amp circuit is 13...L...i dont suggest it. If it's a shop, 2 or 3 on a circuit and a couple on dedicated lines for grinders and other power tools. On the 240volt circuits, you're only allowed one receptacle per breaker. If you can show us a drawing (floor plan), we can lay out the whole job for you.

 

[indyjps]

the 240 volt will drop out of the box and run aprox 10 ft to the outlet, the breaker box is in the garage and the welder will be located on the same wall.
the garage circuit will drop out of the box and run around 2 walls approx 40- 60 ft air compressor will have a single receptacle outlet with 4 more outlets in the circuit, dont have any other dedicated outlets/tools to run in the garage.
the basement circuit will run approx 30 ft and drop into the basement, thinking of running the single receptacle fridge outlet first in the line with about 6 more outlets distributed around a large room all gfci.