How To Install A Garage Sub Panel

how's it going you guys it's Scott with everyday home repair so today I want to walk you through the complete process of installing a sub panel in a garage now I did a little pre-work yesterday and that was getting the trench dug in that included cutting some concrete out renting a four inch wide by 24 inch deep trencher and then cutting the 75 foot of trench between the corner of the house right here and that garage that's behind me now this is approachable DIY project if you feel safe doing electrical work and you know the code in your area that is on you to understand your own area but we got a little help today by Joel wallsman who runs Jefferson Electric out of Indianapolis Indiana and also has an awesome YouTube channel at electric Pro Academy Joel's going to show you step by step and in that timeline you'll see the different chapters of this project so you're more informed if you're taking on this project yourself or if you're just hiring it out just making you more informed so it's easier to work with the professional and you're area and get the result that you want for a reasonable cost so let's jump down in the basement Joel will show you the panel and then we'll go through the plan of attack for this project we're at the panels to my right we have the main electrical panel off here we've got an a newer installed sub panel this is a secondary panel that's been utilized to add circuit capacity because the main panel is full we're going to bring our installation for the garage circuit off of the sub panel because it's newer it's in better condition and it's got the available circuit capacity we're looking for I'm going to be utilizing THHN wire which is a wire type to be utilized only inside conduit I'm using a PVC rigid conduit exiting the top right of the panel penetrating framing in two places before exiting the band board I've got brick to go through so I'll show you that penetration as well and talk about conduit types wire types and their proper uses in this situation we knew we wanted 60 amps in the garage so we're using three six gauge conductors two hot it's in a neutral and a 10 gauge ground that's code for this application we're using one inch conduit to accommodate that circuit and I'll be drilling with a two inch hole because the outside diameter of one inch conduit is one and three eighths these are non-structural framing numbers so I want a little bit more capacity so I can easily slide my pipe in there because I'm going to have to bend it to fit it in and I want a little bit of intentional play all right foreign when you're drilling a two inch hole at that speed man you've got to have that accessory handle uh the glass pane window pane is right there I was afraid of Smashing my hand right into that and suffering lacerations so Hand protection eye protection is an absolute must before you remove that last screw be careful you've got to be qualified to put your hands in here hold the cover in place I like to leverage my forearm something like that where I've got to grab on the lip but I've also got pressure on the cover because that cover can fall towards you and in an attempt to catch it you can accidentally shove it back into the live bus it's really hazardous probably best if you're doing this project yourself to go ahead and turn off the main breaker before pulling the cover these are my two incoming hot conductors main neutral one thing I really like to see in a sub panel like this is this ground this is a code requirement that the ground conductors are separated from the neutral conductors and that's one of the most common mistakes made by diy-ers so you'll find that neutrals and grounds are common they're together in your main panel but every subpanel this one and in the garage the neutrals and grounds will be separated I want to come in this upper knockout so I'm going to go and knock it out so the first knockout I knocked out was a half inch nominal that's actually a 7 8 Dimension the second one that I'm knocking out here is for three quarter inch conduit and that's one and an eighth I'm gonna have to enlarge that hole because I'm using one inch conduit and you can see it's not going to fit so Pro tip before I pull my panel cover off I drilled my two holes and that's to keep debris out of my panel secondly before I drill out this hole with my step bit I'm going to put in a piece of cardboard that's going to help deflect those metal shavings out of my panel in order to keep it clean [Applause] next I'm going to trial fit my one inch schedule 80 conduit through the holes I've drilled I'm going to locate on the band board with Sharpie exactly where that hole goes I'm going to drive a quarter inch pilot hole with my SDS Plus and then I'm going to come back through from the outside in in order to minimize blow out of the brick and have more operating space with the big boy to generate my hole for my pipe you can drive the pilot hole with your hammer drill that you probably got at home but this SDS Plus rotary hammer is going to have so much more punch and it's going to generate that hole much faster it's also going to be capable of larger holes but because of all that punch it's super loud so pull out the hearing protection foreign so I just punched through to the exterior with the solid pilot bit now I'm going to use the big boy to go back through and generate a clean hole you've got at least three options for generating a hole like this you can use a cold chisel and a four pound Sledge and spend about an hour but very cost effectively remove that you've also got the option of the smaller SDS drill and bit like I demonstrated and you can drill a series of holes in a circle and then use a cold chisel to finish it out and that's at least a 30 minute option requires a little bit more tooling or you can buy rent or borrow a big boy like this this is an M18 2717 it's got a carbide hole saw on the end this boss will drill holes like this all day long okay and that chunk of wood right there is a clear sign that you've made it all the way through we've completed our whole outside now we're back inside it's time to complete our conduit I'm going to dry fit everything take it apart glue it up put it back together strap it up and we're back outside running conduit to the garage foreign I had a little bit of trouble getting the lock nut on there I like being in the corner and to the back as often as possible to leave as much free space for additional future circuits but you might want to move it one over to avoid the obstruction of the side of the panel now I'm going to secure and support my conduit that's found in article 352 of the national electrical code the basics are this within three feet of the termination there needs to be a support and then approximately every three feet after that but it does depend on the size and type of conduit so make sure you reference specifically what you're doing in our situation with one inch PVC it's every three feet no exceptions a little wire prepping tip I talked about THHN that's the type of single conductor wire that this is it does not have an overall outer jacket like Romex the conduit is the outer jacket this is going to be a smooth clean simple pull through the conduit a cable like Romex one cannot be in an exterior conduit or an underground conduit that's a big No-No that's a wet location this conduit is not going to be watertight or airtight and it will be considered by code a wet location so I'm using a THHN or thwn that W is for wet wire in the conduit and let me show you how to make your life easier I'm going to spool It Off by keeping it nice and straight nice and straight and smooth I'm going to feed that and that straight run is going to pull through the conduit so much more clean because I'm at right at 360 degrees of bends in my conduit between pull points and that's the maximum code allowable number of bends between pull points so I'm going to experience a lot of resistance peeling it off straight like this and feeding it off is the cleanest smoothest run possible and it's going to pull through the conduit so much better and let me show you what you do if you have piggy tails like this red one you start playing a little cowboy and take the twist out of it all right now instead of using a 90 degree fitting to come out of the house and being way off the building unable to support my conduit I'm going to use an lb this is an L-shaped conduit fitting with the opening on the back as opposed to an L or an LR this conduit fitting I'm going to soften my pipe mount it to the house I'm going to secure my pipe within three feet of both sides of this one strap on the inside two strap on the outside and that's going to properly support the fitting so don't get movement or breakage every joint is the most fragile point on your conduit system I want that to be tight and held rigidly in place the pipe that's exposed both inside and outside is going to be PVC Schedule 80. and that's a heavier wall pipe it's almost double the thickness of schedule 40 and it's designed for exposed locations and to resist physical damage my underground pipe is going to be schedule 40. that's got a larger interior diameter which means an easier wire pull and it's more cost effective as well as being lighter weight thank you it's like yeah okay all right because of the offset and the brick here and the offset in the mini I've created a little PVC custom spacer to bring my conduit in line with my lb and glue in your conduit Parts it's always best to glue both the socket and the Hub if possible you're going to get an easier fit it'll slide in there that much better but always at least glue your Hub in my opinion and then give it a Twist smear that glue around so you get even distribution the PVC glue is really intended in electrical installations for a mechanical hold more than anything else if you weren't clear before now let me make it clear for you this is the suckiest part of the job right here we had four inch nominal concrete to cut through that required I mean Scott actually barred it and did the work himself but that was 100 150 rental per day saw concrete saw to cut through that and then busted up with a sledge hammer and haul those chunks out and then concrete repair on top of that it's laborious laborious to the Max and then you've got the RTX 150 that's a four inch wide by 24 inch deep capacity trencher that was 252 with the trailer from the local rental store do not underestimate your local rental store those guys will drop the knowledge bombs on excavation and Earth moving and best practices and local connections close to your ZIP code all day long they're great at this and you can save so much money don't buy 500 tools just rent them for 50 100 bucks a day send them back they do the repairs they house them ah beautiful all right after you've got your trench and let me tell you what this is one of the magic pieces of the trench this trenching shovel the angle is better it's only four inches wide you'll move less dirt this thing will save you a ton of effort your trench four conduit bicode needs to be about 20 inches deep because you need to have 18 inches of cover that's dirt on top of your pipe 18 inches of cover what I do is I measure and Market a spot on my shovel so I can just stick it in the trench and I've got an automatic depth finder so I'm not pulling out my tape measure wasting time now the angles are not absolutely precise if I don't have a true 90 degree angle I'm going to use this heat gun heat it up and bend it a little bit and you know if it's 80 to 110 I'm going to be totally fine there another thing is now here's the pro tip this is really important but it gets a little bit nerdy don't lay your PVC conduit in the Sun for too long it will actually expand PVC has a substantial expansion coefficient because if you lay it in the sun and it expands you install it in the trench and then because we're above the frost line that kind of will freeze it will literally be less than 32 degrees which means it's going to contract substantially and when you get that substantial contraction it pulls itself apart that's an irresistible force your wire becomes exposed it'll expand again when it heats up it'll contract your wire will be destroyed your conduit path will be incomplete so try to maintain the temperature of your conduit at an equilibrium mine sitting in the shade right now I would put your wire in the sun because that'll soften it up we're not concerned about the same thing but put your conduit in the shade and then just force it to the Contours of the trench you could break it but it's pretty durable so schedule 40 in the trench with 18 inches minimum cover it's different direct for direct Barrel that's 24 inches of cover by code now I'm going to complete my conduit system from here through the trench to the garage and set my sub panel then we're ready for pulling wire I'm going to lay some pipe in the trench but let me call attention to a clay tile here this is something that if you're not head on straight really paying attention looking for the cues can make this an entirely much more complicated project you the individual contractor homeowner you are responsible for calling for public utility locates and they're going to locate water sewer gas electric but only the public utilities all private utilities are off that's on you this is a clay tile this would not be found in a utility locate the way Scott found this there's a storm drain over there it exits at the street over here he put two and two together did some hand digging found the clay tile exposed it absolutely on point there's a storm cistern over there we hit an unknown underground 12 gauge conductor back there irrigation systems PVC non-metallic things of that nature will not be found in a locate the only way to find an irrigation system is if you have a map from the installer you just have to cover your liability know what you're getting into take responsibility and have all of it spelled out in a contractual verbal arrangement of some kind because this right here that's easily a four to eight hour cleanup project and a few hundred bucks thank you thank you so I've completed my underground conduit system I've got a total of three lbs respective pulling points to get the wire through to this location I've bored through my grounding system is nearly complete at every separate structure the national electrical code requires two ground rods more than six feet apart bonded together to the panel with the appropriate sized conductor there are tables for that consult your local inspector and jurisdiction about all of these details because there's finesse and not just code to all of it now we're going to be installing our sub panel this is an 816 meaning eight circuits 16 spaces it's compatible with space saver Breakers we've selected Square D home line because that's the same sub panel type that we have in the house so it just makes it easier minimizes the number of breaker types it's a main lug we did did add the ground bar to separate grounds and neutrals like we talked about in the house and I'm going to use tapcons to secure it one thing you may have seen is plywood on a masonry exterior wall That's not required by coating this situation because we've got quarter inch standoffs that's the bumps on the back of the panel that'll create the separation and that air gap to prevent corrosion of the steel enamel in case you're wondering off to the right you're going to see major tools and equipment that we've utilized in this video and in the description down below you'll get the total material list to help you get started on your project foreign [Applause] dirty best practices at this point I've got a total of four conductors to pull through two Hots neutral in the ground I'm gonna stagger the ends of those conductors a little bit so that I'm not creating one big knob that's going to catch on the fittings through the pipe and then I'm going to double up my ground so I've got a good solid hook and it's going to be tapes all the way back I don't want that pulling out free from the rest of the conductors to where they're left behind and I've got to pull everything out of the pipe it's got twists and tangles in it it's nasty ugly ugly mess you have to get this right there's going to be a ton of resistance on a 360 degree pole like one or two guys full force pulling kind of resistance you've got to lock this in as tightly as possible and this is exactly where electrical tape is notoriously beautiful it's got that stretch which applies tension to the conductors and prevents pull out don't try any other kind of tape you have to use a good quality electrical tape like scotch 88. and here's what the finished product looks like all right if the trench was the number one suck this is the number two right here this is a two-man job we are pulling six gauge conductors through a one inch conduit over 70 feet all of 360 degrees of bends that 360 Max that is a practicality the resistance on your wire in excess of 360 is insanity this is a two-man job we're going to pull through the main segment of the trench through our lbs this is exactly why you have lbs pull points in order to access and minimize the number of bends you're pulling through and then we're going to terminate the sub panel and then terminate wire into the house that'll be an easy push in on each end but this main 70 foot pole oh I want to be feeding as Tim is pulling keep the conductors from kinking Up you can use wire lubricant which makes the job easier but this simple stuff it's designed to be pulled without lubricant but it's gonna be it's gonna be beastly okay okay it get that bad pause before that we'll just there it is all right keep going another enough to get us into the sub panel and terminate it I'm close to 10 feet we got plenty over here so we just accomplished that 70 foot pole wasn't as hard as I thought we shoved it through the little bit of exterior conduit ready to pop into this panel and make our wiring terminations now you might be asking but isn't this panel upside down with the main terminations on the bottom and the answer is no the only thing that makes a panel upside down is if it's Rain Tight and it's inverted because it's no longer Rain Tight loses that Nema 3r rating or if a breaker is down in the on position and off in the up position that's a code violation but these are terminals that can be oriented in either direction and my Breakers move side to side so I'm fully code compliant and I've minimized the amount of wire that's required inside the panel and the amount of congestion from my main conductors coming in and terminating on the top it's a little simpler a little cleaner cinnamon Tim here's one more little trick see how I doubled over that conductor that's to prevent it from snagging on my bushings and fittings and then I'm going to pull one at a time until they're all nested into that lb terminating my conductors it's white to the neutral bar just follow the logical chain and look for Clear labeling black phase one red to phase two and ground to the Ground Bar that's it and then respect your torque settings that are posted here on the inside label and if you can use a torque wrench 25 inch pounds in this case for Ground Bar 50 inch pounds for six gauge on the main conductors all right small little push inside patch the holes to prevent water infiltration on both ends and this part's easy terminate the breaker energize test for power wow look at that that's beautiful beautiful we're rocking that breaker into place want to get a firm seat always want to have breaker panel brand compatibility so Square D home line Square D home line one of the things that's really important here were these larger stranded conductors is the wiggle loosen Titan method so you're wiggling those conductors those strands those fibers are settling into place mashing into place because they're spiraled inside the jacket so you're tightening you're wiggling you're loosening and you're re-tightening down to torque spec to get the optimal connection and if something's going to fail it's going to fail at a wiring connection so let's let's make up our terminations here so remember the entire panel is de-energized except for these main two lugs coming into this breaker uh now what I'm doing here is considering that this is my a phase so this is Phase a phase a phase a and then this one right here is Phase a so standard color coding is um phase a is black phase B is red and I'm going to hold true to that although there's nothing I'm going to screw up it's just a a minute detail of quality workmanship so uh oh a little bit of a mistake here this is a sub panel grounds and neutrals have to be separated so I'm going to put my neutral fold off the ground bar which is incorrect and move it over to my neutral bar which is the correct location we did turn on the two pole 60 amp in the house plus the sub panel now it's time for validation to ensure that our work is good we've got 123 volts hot to grounds move my gator clip 122.5 hot to ground nothing neutral to ground and we just want to make sure we've got 240 nominal the service is running a little bit hot hot to hot we're at 2 50 dancing around a bit hot to hot that's good so to get to this point right here was 800 in materials and 300 in rentals it's eleven hundred dollars for a DIY if you're hiring out to Pros you're probably four to six thousand because of the intense labor on the trench plus the technical aspects from this point all of our projects diverge but one thing we have in common is an outlet to make everything else easier and to facilitate the rest of the project so for that click on this video right here thanks for joining and we'll catch you next time

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 241,910

Keywords: sub panel installation, garage sub panel installation, barn sub panel, everyday home repairs, electric pro academy, DIY

Id: 6HNhCH_hk2M

Length: 28min 27sec (1707 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 23 2022