No i dont know anything about eletric, but im willing to learn. Im willing to listening to every little thing someone tells me.
I took some pictures, but im not sure if this is the breaker box.
Theres 2 boxes, the one on the left is the one with the switch i have to switch back on when the power goes out in my garage.
Thank you very much.
Please understand this is very important to me...
Ill send you some free clones or bud if you can help me
THANX FOR THE PICTURES, WE LIKE PICTURES AND DID i MENTION WE LIKE PICTURES. a PICTURE IS LIKE A THOUSAND WORDS.
Now what we have here is a Main Panel and a sub panel. When they started to improve the electric service to the garage they ran out of space in the original box so they ran an extension panel to add available spaces and probably up graded the Main service to 200amp at that time. What they have done is very nice, we can work with that.
There should be a double pull double throw (DPDT) switch in your main panel labeled GARAGE. If you turn that off, you Garage sub panel should be dead. If you turn that one back on and turn off the top right switch in your sub panel your garage should be dead.
If that work we can go further. See that space that goes the opposite direction at the very top of your sub panel. You can put a new Mainswitch there, it probably will not be necessary at this point, you have lots of available Space. You can not put one there that has a higher amp rating than the panel does so you need to read what that rating is on the information card in the panel. It is probably a 100 panel.
All we need to do is run a couple of new circuit for the garage and put in a couple of new breakers. A couple of different ways you can do this, simple as a,b,c, black, white, green and sometimes d which is red. The choice would depend on the distance to the garage, more than likely because you already have a sub panel, we would just decide to skip d and install two or three or........ new 20 amp circuits.
If your still with me, turn the Garage switch off in the main panel, and take the cover off of the Garage panel, take a look around, you can follow the wires. The dipole switch will have a red wire and a black wire that is connected to the outside of the switch, these are your Hot Wires, they will supply 110 volts each or a total of 220 volts. If you follow them back to the cord or conduit those two come from you will find a white wire, that goes to ground or neutral, and either a green or a bare wire, that is you grounding wire.
If you look at the Single pull switches ( SPST), they will have a black wire connected to the outside of the switch. Follow that and you will find a white and a green or bare wire. If you can follow that from the panel, you should see it in the garage.
What we need to do is
1)Install some duplex boxes in the garage
2) wire them to the sub panel
3) Install new Breaker Switchs in the panel.
ALWAYS TURN THE SWITCH OFF FIRST.
I recommend using 12 wire and 20 amp breakers and receptacles. My reasoning is simple. If I run a 1000 watt light, that will be a 9 amp load, I will still be able to run a small appliance without overloading the circuit, no more than 80% or 16 amps of load.
If I were doing this for the first time, I would want to take a breaker out to 'See' how it goes in. Always turn off the switch first. There is a 'pry spot' at the inside edge of the breaker, take a plastic or rubber handled medium length flat screw driver and 'pry' gently toward the outside of the panel, just rock it a little to get it started. It will pop right out, the black wire will still be attached to it. What you have done is taken the switch out of the circuit. Now you can 'see' what you need to do to correct this problem. Those little round things on the side of the panel are knock out plugs, clamps hold the wire in place. always pull a little more wire through the hole than you need, 1" short....not good, cut off 6" waste.......much better. Connect you white wire, stripped back 1/2", under any available screw in the neutral bar, and attach the attach the green or bare copper wire to the grounding bar. Now attach the black wire to the breaker switch you are holding in your hand and then plug it in. Put the outside in place and push down on the front until you see it lock in place. You can safely check your work as you go. Once you have your switch in place go plug something that makes noise in the receptacle. Now turn on the garage switch in the main panel, then turn on the switch you installed. If the radio comes on your golden. Turn off the Garage switch in the main panel and continue with the rest of them.
Breaker Switches for most major manufacturers are available for less than $5.00 at the big box stores, you can often buy a 'Contractor Pack' of 10 for the cost of 5 individually. Just buy the brand for your Sub Panel. Work boxes are inexpensive, I do recommend the deep boxes, it gives you more room to work with, and more space to dissipate heat. They make work boxes for all of the applications, new work and 'old' work.
When you visit the big box stores look at the displays they have for wiring simple projects.
The 20 amp receptacles are about $2.50 more than the 15 amp, so around $3.00 a piece, I have been accused of always over supplying available power, my lights don't dim when I run my table saw. When you buy wire that you are likely to use again, its usually cheaper to have 20' more than you need then it is to have 2' less than you need.
Once you have installed a circuit, it will be like riding a bike, you won't forget how.
One more thing and then I will stop, because you are doing the work your self you will save a lot of money, use some of that to buy good electrical hand tools if you don't already have them. If will save you a lot of grief. VV