How to Wire a Subpanel

hi this is Tim today we're gonna go through wine a subpanel and wiring grape circuits now this is a little different than our typical video because we normally do industrial controls and PLC programming but I've got a lot of maintenance guys asked me if I could do kind of a primer on basic household electrical wiring and what tools you would need few things before we get started make sure you check your or litical electrical codes because not only does like okay vary from state to state and also varies from locality locality in states so what I'm showing you here may not hold true where you're at also consider getting an electrician to do the work for you somebody is good at their job will save you a ton of time and make sure that you're safe for all your work in fact I am a licensed electrician but I don't actually use my license we normally build ul 508 a industrial control panels and when we are having them installed on-site we usually hire licensed electricians that do this every day to do our wiring I just want to go through some basics of the tools that you need and you notice how to our basic sub panel circuit breaker first I like to use these long 7h drill bits that have the pulling bit on the front of them also gives you a high-quality one this one this particular one is a greenly they haven't actually answered this video but it's a good quality bit and say it calls itself a nail eater but I'm gonna warn you make sure you try to avoid with these because these bits are expensive and while this one may say it's an a leader nails will dull these super fast insects I'm only gonna drill a few of these I'm just going to use a typical cordless drill and I'm gonna drill through each stud you want to be as close to the center as a stun as possible but in this case we're supposed to put these 42 inches from the ground that is just the specification that was given to us by the owner and also they will have 220 outlet right below a 2-game box and one will be for the inside line and the other for the outside line we're running 20 amp circuits so we're going to use this 12 - or MX a monitor an X they are color-coded some of your older or MX won't be but typically white is 14 gauge which is good for 15 amps yellow is 12 which is good for 20 amps now I'm just throwing these averages out they're not considering distance off if you're gonna run this like a thousand feet you might need to do a voltage drop calculation there's where it's great to consult electrician to figure out is for sure what you should be using all the way to the end but you have all your wires in the box you're going to want to put a staple and in our case we want it within six inches of the pop now you don't want to smoke it and smash it down you just wanted to bring it up snug to it also you want to make sure that it all looks tidy even though even if it's even when it's gonna get covered up later just make sure it all stapled up really nice it just looks really good for the inspector so we get all our wires here and you notice in the bot there's a bunch of holes already knocked out and just kind of laying there so we're just gonna take some of those out and I'm sure somebody will tell me that there's a proper tool to do this with but he's been knocked out with the hands and then pull out the jobs going through the Box you have this type here which is kind of a newer wet style connector and then you also have your traditional romex connector also they want an outside receptacle on this and you can buy this whole kit and this is just well worth it that way you get to get back in you're not a bunch of parts it includes the box with the plugs for all the holes you're not using ground fault receptacle and a weatherproof cover alright we have our power wires for a sub panel R and now I'm not gonna bore you if connected to each wire but if you want to get it through a couple things this right here is since it's a sub panel the neutral and the ground are not the same so most of them will come with some type of long screw like this which is meant on a main panel to be ran let's see if this one it's right here normally you'd run the screw in here and this bond is a neutral to the case but since this is the sub pane and we'll keep those separate so we don't use that we're gonna install this ground bar here and if you look around you'll see these two spots here and easily find that there's a dip somewhere in this case it right here and the other two screens a lineup so this middle one gets this raised spot here and then the other ticket screws also we determine the wire size you need to consider the distance that you're pulling so don't go off your general rule that you hear that number 14 is 15 amps number 12 is 20 number 10 is 30 that really doesn't work especially on theatres where you may be running big distances I'll put a link in the description to a chart you can use to figure out which size wire you need for the distance you're going this is copper wire so we don't need to use an anti-corrosive on it but if you were running aluminum then you would all need to put some on the end of it I'll put a link to some of that in the description all sides [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] then every panel needs a grimrock and I've just got this shut down the side for now we'll go outside and show you what about that for now run this in pick it up to the ground as well alright now that we have all our wires in the panel we are gonna get there just a short thing on household power though notice you have double pole and single pole breakers so coming in you have one leg of 120 here and that's 120 from here to this white neutral wire and over here this is another leg of 120 so from here to here you have 120 but between the two of these you will have 220 so when you use a double pole breaker it pulls off of both of these legs for 220 power and a single pole you're gonna go between the breaker and this barn right here which certain neutral bar and that's gonna give you 120 220 is like stoves hot-water heaters air conditioners bigger loads like that and 120 is your wall outlets dishwashers refrigerators microwaves things like that so along with that each one has a rating on it you can see here this is a 30 amp double pole and this is a 20 amp single pole so the 30 amp is actually going to go to this orange wire which is number 10 and these twenties are for this yellow 12 to consider install them get a little tab here and they just snap in now the good thing about a single-phase panel is brake replacement doesn't matter that much especially in households now it was an industrial application I'd say yeah we may need to look at loading and balancing the typically household ones don't need that a lot of concern about that but if this was a three-phase panel then breaker plate placement could matter and we may do a video about breakers and three-phase panels then if I was electrician for my day job I'd have a nice rhythmic stripper but I don't have one so I simply take a knife and cut the insulation off of it now here's where you'll separate the pros from the amateur and I'm going to tell you I'm on the amateur side maybe I'll even somewhere here all post some pictures of some just outstanding breaker panels where every wire is just perfectly lined up they get a lot of practice and I just thought that my practice or that much patience but you do want to try to make them as neat as possible also one thing the now on think about it I'm going to describe a little more of how to do it on this side because you can see better one thing I've just thought about only one wire should go into a breaker so if you need to add a new circuit don't add it to an existing breaker go ahead and get you an extra breaker if you don't have any room here panel they make piggyback breakers that are pretty much - breakers in one space and if you still don't have room then you contact an electrician and see what you can work out now when it comes to the double blow record instead of hooking the white wire to the neutral will actually look it to the other pulse we're going to bring these up here and the black will go to the first one and the white will go to the second one and you still look your ground up is same way as you would on a single pole breaker so even though these breakers are on this side they're still round up over here we actually are provisions for grounds on both sides of this but on this panel only from one end we can make it outside to talk about the ground rod that was on the other side of that bare copper wire but outside of your panel there should be a bare copper wire that comes down and goes to a ground rod which is actually right there and there about eight 10 foot long they need to go all the way in the ground in other words don't be one of those short cutters that like it gets difficult by foot and and that you saw the end of it off and then you hammer it the mushroom bit to make it look like you drove all the way in this is 30 and trust me I've ran into issues on systems that are like that also depend on your locality and the sole time you may need a second ground rod and I'm a controls guy so I always put a second ground rod in now the electrician's gonna be like no way that's extra money extra time didn't know get a line buried here and it runs out it needs to be at least the link of the ground rod and you'll see a second ground rod right here so grounding is always important for controls people but yeah electricians will probably argue with me on that one hope it gives you a little insight into how a typical breaker panel or sub panel works and how you would install it again if you have a project and you're not real comfortable with electricity or with any step of the process contact a local electrician they're well worth the money like say but we're still on a control panel we usually use a local electrician but this is a little bit different video than normal so let me know what you think of it in the comments please hit that like button and subscribe to our Channel we put out at least one automation video a week till next time hi this is Dylan and this is neighbor of TW controls we run the automation store hey thanks for finding their channel here's the playlist videos and YouTube makes you liked this video please like our video and subscribe to our Channel and if our videos have helped you make some money and you're not using our products please consider supporting us on patreon till next time see ya

Channel: Tim Wilborne

Views: 356,597

Keywords: how to wire a subpanel, how to install a subpanel, how to install a sub panel, sub panel wiring, sub panel, how to wire a subpanel from main panel, how to wire a subpanel box, how to wire a subpanel circuit breaker box, How to wire a subpanel in garage, how to wire a subpanel in a shed, how to wire an electrical panel, electrical panel installation, How to wire an electrical panel box, electrical panel explained, Tim Wilborne, Electrical wiring basics

Id: rtXc2rFLaTQ

Length: 12min 37sec (757 seconds)

Published: Sat May 30 2020