4000w electrical question in garage

I wana set up my garage with 4000w of light. Since I have little knowledge bout wiring the panel, I was gona hire a electrician. I'm just curious, is that a tough job for a skilled electrican to do? Does it involve tearing down wall or anything of that nature. And usually how long would it take. Any info would be appreciated thanks

So question. Are you a legal grower? If not then how you gonna explain that? 4000w is alot but wiring isnt too hard. You'll learn pretty quick on what not to do unless your fucking with DC power then youll probably ya maybe an electrician might be best lol

Kind of depends on your building codes and what you need or want to do.

Yea I'm legal. I got my card and everything. Iono I was Gona tell the electrican that I'm Gona start a indoor garden in my garage. Like tomatoes and stuff haha

Well if your legal you aint got nothing to worry about unless you against building codes or lanlord or doing more than you legal limit. 4k watts is alot of juice

best to explain to your sparky exactly what you are going to be doing. if you are legal, there is no harm explaining. if you are not legal, tell him the power is for metal working tools, such as mills, lathes, chop saws, welders, etc, which draw a fuckton of juice. you want to take into account pumps, fans and anything else that uses juice in your grow room. add it all up, add 30%, and that is what your wiring wants to handle minimum.

as for the actual install, the wiring may already be able to handle the load, it might just be your RCD that needs the upgrade. if additional wiring needs to be done, it depends entirely on your layout. you may have wiring ducting in place which is a simple thread through, or he may have to chase through blockwork or whatever. he will explain it to you, however, always have a certified professional do it and get a full account of what work has been done, so if your shit burns down, you have grounds to sue.

It's a garage. Any electrician won't even ask why you want work done, and 4kW is nothing, especially in a location like that. Air compressors, adequate lighting, electric heating, don't say ANYTHING about growing, or you may risk becoming the target of a ripper one day (you never know who the electrician may talk to).

As far as running cabling, a good electrician will only need to do very minor damage to run cabling even behind drywall. If you don't want any damage done at all, you can specify that, and they can simply run BX cable, or standard Romex through conduit to keep it code-worthy.

-spek

I've got at least 4000w of available flow in my basement alone man; that's like four outlets on separate breakers. Just tell him (or maybe her, oo, the future) that you need more electicity flow to your garage and have some sense of where you'd like your outlets; a professional can hook you up pretty easily. But.... you probably already have at least 2000w going to your garage; especially if you use the electrical circuit that the garage door opener is on for growing purposes. Mmmmm.... sounds nice..

Actually running romex in conduit isn't to code. Romex is for inside walls. When I ran the electric in my garage I used the wiring that has conduit on it already and run it over the drywall with anchors across the garage. I ran 2 individual 110v 20amp circuits and if I could do it again I would have run a 220 sub panel over there instead. Maybe someday in the future if I feel like redoing my setup!

Get her done before your ahj adopts 2014 nec or likely pay for arc fault breakers.

Licensed ec's are gonna do it by code and pull permits as required.

supchaka said:

Actually running romex in conduit isn't to code. Romex is for inside walls. When I ran the electric in my garage I used the wiring that has conduit on it already and run it over the drywall with anchors across the garage. I ran 2 individual 120v 20amp circuits and if I could do it again I would have run a 220 sub panel over there instead. Maybe someday in the future if I feel like redoing my setup!

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Interesting... even indoors through PVC? Back to electrical school for spek!

-spek

supchaka said:

Actually running romex in conduit isn't to code. Romex is for inside walls. When I ran the electric in my garage I used the wiring that has conduit on it already and run it over the drywall with anchors across the garage. I ran 2 individual 120v 20amp circuits and if I could do it again I would have run a 220 sub panel over there instead. Maybe someday in the future if I feel like redoing my setup!

Click to expand...

Although not generally done you can put nm cable in a raceway. Key is it wrecks your fill rating calculations. Its also hard as hell to pull. Better have plenty of yellow 77 to do a long run of buried uf cable in a raceway. Lol