Ok this will be dumb to some of you but i'm totally clueless on this house wiring stuff, thank goodness I know several great electricians

what all needs to be done to get 220 into my garage?

 

oh, and how expensive is it to accomplish??

 

Well, this depends on a few different things. First off, what kind of main breaker panel do you have now? I'll do it a few diff ways. First, Ill assume you have a 200 amp main panel, most newer houses do. The thing to do if you are planning on staying there awhile is to put you a subpanel in the garage that would feed the entire garage. The cost of doing it this way versus just running a 220 volt circuit by itself depends on 1)how much power you need and how many things your wanting to run off of it at once 2) how many circuits are in the garage now and how easy would it be to convert them over to the subpanel once its installed 3) how far away the garage is from the breaker box. If you go the subpanel route, you would be running a set of very thick, very expensive wires to feed the subpanel and then you would run everything in your garage off of that, including what is already in there. I would suggest an 80amp if your just doing the occasional use (such as a welder, air compressor etc) . Now if your planning on welding with the compressor running, two guys on some angle grinders etc...you may want to go 100 amp. The cost difference is not that much different. If you are dead set on just needing 220 for one thing, and can live with only using the outlet for one thing at a time, just running a single circuit vs the subpanel would be waay cheaper. What you could do if say you wanted a 220 air compressor but also wanted to use a welder. If you could sacrifice not using the compressor while your welding you would be ok. This way you could run one 30 amp 220 volt circuit and reduce your cost considerably. To help get a rough estimate for the subpanel route, get a rough estimate of how far your garage is from the main panel, and then add about 20 feet. Call your local supply house and get a price on xxxx amount of feet of 6/4 copper wire. That should be good for an 80 amp. It is extremely expensive. Then figure about 50 bucks on a panel, plus any labor. The other way would be to do the same amount of distance and probably price some 8/3 wire. The way you ask for that is "eight three copper wire, or "six-four" copper wire. That is the guage of the wire and how many wires are in the jacket. The higher the first number the bigger the wire. I cant give you an estimate becuase I havent bought wire in a long time, and its going up everyday. Just be sure to use copper, don't buy into the aluminum is just as good ****.

 

you should do a sub panel in the garage, then do outlets from there. honestly, the easiest way to explain a 220 is two 110 volt hots plus one ground (depending on the appliance sometimes a neutral). that easy.

 

*fixed* ground is a whole seperate issue with a/c, not trying to be an ***, just saving people from kocking the **** out of themselves if someone works on this.

Typically in a/c circuits 110v the hot wire is BLACK, neutral is WHITE and ground is GREEN. In 220vac You still have the black hot wire, but there will also be another color of wire in there, brown maybe or even something else. Neutral should still be white and green is ground. NEVER EVER EVER use black for a ground, you'll wind up killing an electrician.

Ohh yeah, and incase anyone is interested a neutral wire is like an infinite electron bank, you can push or pull as many electrons from there as required, 110, 220, 277, 460 all push/pull from the same neutral.

 

30A is not going to serve a welder that's capable of welding more than sheetmetal.

 

Here's what I got lucky with. When we moved in, we brought with us our gas cooktop range and oven. In the house already was an electric stove that I removed. I've since pulled the 220v back the box (breakers turned off by the way) and am in the process of running it to the garage. It's a 40 amp so I'll be fine running the compressor and if I have to I'll just alternate while using something else, ie a welder. I'm not in enough of a hurry that I have to run the compressor and weld at the same time.

 

not at the same time but my compressor and welder run just fine of a 30 amp breaker.

 

I believe a lot of circuits are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overbuilt for their application. Typically you want 25% more amperage than what the welder/compressor or whatever else draws. I wired in a 220v 6.5hp air compressor 2 weeks ago and it only pulled 15 amps, 7.5hp is the highest hp I've EVER seen on a 220v circuit and it should only pull 20 amps. Its hard to say how many amps a welder will pull since that's all up to the welder and amperage you're welding on, but a good way to figure it out is a simple conversion volts x amps = volts x amps = watts. If you running 15vdc at 180 amps it SHOULD pull near 13 amps at 220v, minus the magnetic contactor and other small power draws internally on the welder.

 

IIRC you have an attached garage? that makes it a bunch easier. Is the fuse panel in the garage already or is it in the house? If its in the house it is a little more effort.

If your looking for 60A its going to require running a 1" pipe and 3 #6`s out there.

If your just looking for 30A to run a compressor or small mig you can do it with 3 #10`s and a 3/4" pipe.

 

Another thought, do you have spaces for 2 more breakers (right next to eachother) in your panel?

 

What if youre house has 100 amp service? I know it sucks azz

 

that shouldn`t matter. If you have a 100A service you can run a 60A subpanel in the garage. 99% of the time your house will not be sucking 40amps, the only way I could see problems is if you had a stick welder going in the garage, the A/C on in the house, an electric stove and dryer going.

I am between decent garages now, and I am tapping into the air conditioner circuit (30A breaker) if I need to power the welder or air compressor. The A/C says it takes 20A, the welder is 21, and the compressor is 10A. Last summer I had the compressor plugged in and running, I was welding.....and then the A/C kicked in, it didn`t even trip the breaker. Now if you add that up its 51A total......plus the rest of the house....and this house only has a 60A service. Just because you have a 60A or 100A panel in the house does not mean that you will always be drawing 60A or 100A or even close to that.

 

My electrcian friend put my 220 in last Wednesday. FOR FREE. Stuff he already had. He tried to explain it to me but that was useless. That stuff confuses the hell out of me. The only thing I know is that if you are planing on running an extension cord make sure its big enough for the amperage. Mines 8 gauge I think. He told me that 50' would be the max length for my setup. He made my cord 30'. Works good. Good luck.

 

Well, i was thinking along the lines of welding body panels and such, maybe a little cracker box or tig torch. I use a nice miller at work that handles most "general" welding tasks and it takes a 20amp 110 feeder. Ive welded on angle iron and made several brackets with it. Its a nice unit.

 

Depends on what kind of welder.... My Miller Dynasty only needs 30 amp 220 outlet (which is what I have in my garage) If you buy a transformer style welder yea that is gonna need like a 60 or 70 amp outlet. BTW the Dynasty is so NICE

 

*fixed* although I'd kill to have one. But I can't really justify it since I do just fine with my econotig and I really only weld aluminum maybe once a month, if that. Dynastys are neat, but there's enough fuctions on there that someone who's never welded before can lay a bead like a king.

 

^^^^It will pay for itself. It was the only choice for me cause all the other machines require like a 60 amp outlet. And the options are really extensive

 

yo silver .. im a union guy in chi-town.. i can help if u need it

 

There are a few ways you can do it. One is to come out of your existing breaker box with a 60 amp 220 breaker. This works if you can get the wire outside easily, but sometimes, brick structures can cause trouble with getting the wire to the outside. Another option is to come directly off the load side of your meter base. You can come straight out of the base into a outdoor breaker panel with 1 - 60 amp 220 breaker. From there run the wire (I prefer #4 copper minimum, IN PIPE) to your garage into a 60 amp sub panel and from there you can run 110 and 220. Just depends on the structures your working with.