Hi GJ forum,
I've found a lot of great threads already but looking for a little specific advice for my scenario. I want to install a sub panel in my garage for EV charging & small/medium 220V lathe, maybe a welder or something else down the line. My main panel is 125A service and I was thinking I would feed the subpanel with a 50A breaker. The EV charges in the middle of the night so I'm not too concerned about overloading the 50A breaker since tools won't be used at same time as charger.
There are several other pieces of conduit already installed from previous homeowner and with my limited experience working with conduit I am trying to figure out the best route.
Questions:
I've found a lot of great threads already but looking for a little specific advice for my scenario. I want to install a sub panel in my garage for EV charging & small/medium 220V lathe, maybe a welder or something else down the line. My main panel is 125A service and I was thinking I would feed the subpanel with a 50A breaker. The EV charges in the middle of the night so I'm not too concerned about overloading the 50A breaker since tools won't be used at same time as charger.
There are several other pieces of conduit already installed from previous homeowner and with my limited experience working with conduit I am trying to figure out the best route.
Questions:
- Should I use copper wire?
- I see my local big box stores have copper #6 thhn wires by the foot which is what I was originally thinking. The run is about 25 ft horizontally so by the time I add in some slack for connections and vertical jogs I figure I need 50ft of wire and just the wire is ~$250 which was more than I expected.
- Is aluminum a better option?
- I'm concerned the cost savings would be offset by having to go with larger conduit and make routing more difficult. If I do go this route what is the cable spec I should be looking for?
- How would you route the conduit and what size would you use?
- If using 4 #6 copper thhn wires I believe the tables say I could use 3/4" emt with some watertight fittings, correct? It's dry here in CO and I have other EMT for the solar system that hasn't had any corrosion issues so that seems to make sense to me but again looking for input from the wise/experienced.
- Option 1 is low along the bottom of the wall. It would be fairly straightforward with the exception of having to jump over the big conduit feeding the meter.
- Option 2 would require sneaking the conduit behind the big conduit where the existing unused 3/4 pvc stuff is (not much room for anything bigger than 3/4" in that gap).
- Option 3: make a new hole in the side of he main panel? From what I've read, the preference seems to be coming out of the bottom to reduce the number of water ingress points so this doesn't seem like the best.
- Option 4: Something else?
- If using 4 #6 copper thhn wires I believe the tables say I could use 3/4" emt with some watertight fittings, correct? It's dry here in CO and I have other EMT for the solar system that hasn't had any corrosion issues so that seems to make sense to me but again looking for input from the wise/experienced.
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