And The Work Continues On The “outhouse”.

On Thursday I hired my son and a couple of his friends to finish ripping walls out of our little Cape Cod (which will become a rental, eventually), so I can rewire the whole house.  It is a 1950 house that has had the electrical systems so patched and spliced over the years that you couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so I just decided to start from scratch and redo the whole system.  That’s for another blog post, though.

Friday, I took the day off to make a working weekend of the holiday.  My son and I got an early start (6:30am) an took a load of construction trash from our Cape Cod remodel project to the landfill.  On the way back we picked up a 36″ trencher from Grand Rental Station, Aquia, VA.  We spent most of the rest of the day running a 300′ trench from the house to the workshop at the “outhouse” (named by my son because of the stench of dog urine in the house).  The previous owner had build a nice 35X55 insulated metal building on a concrete foundation (destined to be my “man-cave”), installed industrial flourescent light fixtures and wired outlets, but never ran electricity to it.  He probably intended to have the power company run a separate power line and meter to it.  Here’s my plan:

In previous workshops of mine, I have found 100 Amp service to be adequate for my needs.  My workshop consists mainly of 220V single-phase woodworking tools with +/- 3hp motors.  I have 6-8 major tools and the rest are 110V hand tools.  I occasionally do mechanic work and every once in a while I do some welding with a stick or mig welder.  So far 100 Amps has been fine, so that’s what I planned for this workshop.  Eventually, when I have my dream workshop, I’ll probably run a 200A service, maybe even 3-phase, but not this time.

I plan to install a 100 Amp breaker in the 200 Amp service panel of the house and label it Workshop.  I will run 2/0-2/0-2/0 service cable, like what you can find at Home Depot and Lowes at about $2.49 and $2.27/ft, respectively, for the 300′ run to the workshop from the house.  That cable is rated at 150A, so it is more than adequate and if someone chooses to upgrade the service at a later date they can probably go to a 200A service and not have to change the cable.  It is assumed you won’t be running all the tools at one time, so the cable rating is less than the service amperage (Consult an electrician for more information.  I’m just a DIYer.)  The county told me this cable is approved for direct-burial, so that’s what I plan to do.  I will protect it above ground, where it goes into the buildings, by encasing it in 1-1/2″ plastic conduit.  While I don’t believe that is required by code for that type of cable, it seems prudent to me.  That will provide 100A at 220V to my workshop.

Inside the workshop, there will be a 100A service panel with a 100A main breaker and room for 6 circuits.  That will be sufficient for my needs.  If I need to expand it, I’ll add a separate sub-panel.  This arrangement will have a 100A breaker at the house as a shutoff, as well as a 100A main at the workshop as a shutoff.  Overkill, but it will be convenient to be able to shut off the electricity at the box in the workshop to do work, on the electrical system.  Up at the house, adding the 100A breaker is the only way I know to connect the workshop power to the house power and still have it run through the house’s 200A main breaker.  Any other way makes it a 300A service.

I plan to run Cat-5e telephone cable (for ethernet connection to the house) and a video cable to the workshop as well.  Those will be encased all the way in 3/4″ plastic conduit.  I plan to bury the service cable in at least 6″ of dirt before laying the Cat-5e and video cable in on top, in order to reduce electromagnetic interference from the service cable.  I don’t know if that is really a problem, but I recall from a previous project that it was recommended that video and ethernet cables cross power cables with at least 6″ clearance and at right angles for that reason.

By the way, I got the proper permit from County Zoning and Planning for the electrical work for my workshop.  I want everything done right, inspected, and approved.  If you don’t do this, you will have to make a choice when you sell the house.  Either you will choose to be honest and disclose on the Homeowner’s Disclosure form that you did work without a permit, possibly hampering your ability to sell the house, or you will lie and indicate on the form that all work was properly permitted and done.  If you lie, you open yourself up to possibility of lawsuit down the road.  Honesty is always “the best policy.”

TTH