Running 220V outlet into my garage to run a grinder?

J

jaymeister99

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Sep 14, 2010
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Does anybody know roughly how much it might cost to run a 220V line out to my garage? I know almost zero about household electric. The house has 200amp service. I would imagine the biggest energy drainers right now are two stoves, two refrigerators, and the boiler.

There are several 20amp and 15amp switches on the box, I would assume one or two of these could be run out to the garage? I don't think it can be drawing anywhere near the full 200amps(?).
 
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There's a thread here which may be helpful if you are thinking of 100A service.

My panel is on the outside wall of the garage. A friend (retired electrician) added a breaker and punched a second 220V run through the wall - he said regular price would have been about $300.
 
Carl_First_Timer said:
How far is the garage from the Main panel? Attached garage, or separate?
Click to expand...

And what amperage ?
Load and distance dictates the wire diameter needed = the largest portion of the cost.


What is is you are trying to run 2 HP grinder?
Read the amperage specs off the motor plate.


You will need EMPTY spaces in the box without breakers in now.
(normally 2 breakers widths side by side, but they have split breakers and different things now.)
 
Pretty simple, really. So is brain surgery if you know how. :D

If you know nothing about electricity, call a few electricians, get a few bids. That's the best you can do. No one can tell you a good way to electri-fry yourself on a knife forum.
 
The breaker box is about 45ft from the attached garage. I'm assuming there are a few open breakers, I don't think there is any way this house is drawing anywhere near 200amps.

I would be planning on running a 2hp motor on it. I was going to plan on getting a 1 1/2hp and run it at 110v. But the 1.5hp at 110v draws 17 amps, so either way I would need to run another line. I would prefer to have a 20amp line, I may want to put in a decent air compressor someday (can this run on the same line? I know not at the same time).

Theres loads of empty spaces on the breaker box.
 
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For a while I made an 220 extension cord that I used to run my hydraulic press. I would just unplug the clothes dryer and plug it in when working. Worked great and was a pretty cheap option. -Burton
 
run a 60A ckt to a 220 sub-panel in the garage
you can feed the grinder, air compressor, etc. off of it

if you want to just do the grinder 2/30 CB in the existing panel, 2#14 w/#14 ground Cu (I would run 12's, but for 50' w/14's the Vd is <4 VAC) and meets code
 
If this is a fairly permanent location for your shop; run a large enough sub panel to handle new equipment you might purchase. Most knife shops end up with a welder of some type. Welders draw 50 amps. Air compressors 30 amp. My large twin motored vac draws 28 at start up. A hundred amp sub panel will support most shops. 220 volts draws less amperage at start up.

Good luck, Fred
 
I had an electrician from work help me completely rewire my shop only a few days ago to get 220 to my press, welder, and air compressor. We changed out the breaker box, breakers, and ran new wire. It was so easy I was kind of upset that I didn't know how to do it before. If you don't have a drier outlet in your garage you could buy some sow cord, and proper plugs from home depot and just run a cord from your drier to your garage to get by right now until you can do it right.
 
Any idea how much this would cost?

I would imagine running a line from the dryer would be cheapest. The dryer is right on the other side of the wall behind the garage. The compressors Ive looked at run around 15amps at 220v.

This won't be a 100% permanent location.
 
If all you have to do for now is run wire through the wall from the dryer circuit, figure the distance, probably go with 14 gauge wire like Schrodinger's said, and go price out what the wire will cost. Adding an outlet to plug the grinder into would be nice as well.

Or, you could add a 30 amp 220V breaker to your house panel, buy the 50 ft. of wire and an outlet for the shop. If you use a 50 amp breaker you could weld or run an HT oven off it if you want. Then you would have to up-size your wire accordingly.

Those guys are right IMO about it being nice to have a 100 amp sub panel in the shop. I have, and I've almost filled it totally at this point.

If you are working in your house panel, make sure to cut the power to it entirely. There should be a large switch inside to do that. Then, even take a voltage meter and test the buss bars to make SURE it's off. You can install a breaker and add a circuit to a live box, but don't. It's easy to take a minute to be safe. Always think twice about what you are doing. It's pretty easy stuff, but also can be very dangerous without the proper care.

Do-it-yourself books will sometimes include instructions for adding breakers and circuits. Read up.
 
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I ran two cords to hang down from the ceiling. One was 110V to supply electricity my workbenches, the other was 220V for the press. The 110V cable cost about 35.00 dollars plus another 10 for fittings. I can not find the receipt for the 220 line and bought it with other stuff at a different time but think it was less than 100 dollars for the cord and fittings.

The cords were run from a junction box in my application, should run from dryer outlet in yours.

IMG_0417.jpg


Hung by uni-strut to keep them from becoming a tripping hazard and to keep it out of the way.

IMG_0416.jpg


Here you can see the cords location to the shop. They are out of the way, and I have plenty of extra cord to move the equipment later on if I want to. Also since I am only renting this place it is only a matter of a few minutes work to disconnect everything and take it with me.

IMG_0415.jpg
 
Wow nice setups! Is that a TW90?

I'll talk to a pro to see about setting this up. I got loads of ideas here to suggest to the electric guy. I want to do it cheap enough to get the job done, but not so cheap to be unsafe.

Thanks for all the responses.
 
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