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Author Topic: Wiring new garage  (Read 2046 times)

wreckit87

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Wiring new garage
« on: May 08, 2020, 12:17:14 PM »

Hey guys, hope everyone is staying clear of the Chinese sneeze disease and keeping healthy. I put up a garage about a year and a half ago and have been slowly picking away at the finishes as I have time and ambition (not a common scenario). It's come time for the electrical now and I'm questioning some of my earlier decisions. This garage is actually built out of 4x10ft insulated panels repurposed from a couple walk-in freezers, so 3 walls and the whole ceiling are all 5" thick high density urethane foam with a 26ga galvalume sheet on each side for the finish. The 4th wall I stick framed from 2x6 to have structure for the 16ft overhead door and service door, then had it filled with closed cell spray foam to seal it up tight. This whole thing was set on top of a heated slab with thickened edges and I ran the electrical in through the slab to enter inside that gable wall, thinking I could bury the panel inside that wall and have a seamless look up there. I did mount the panel and had it all piped from the service entry and grounded to the rebar per code, then had the whole thing foamed in tight so now the panel is recessed into the wall. Given the nature of the freezer wall panels, I have to run exposed conduit which is fine- but I didn't think ahead far enough to figure out how to get from the recessed panel to surface mounted conduit without it looking ridiculous. I haven't sheeted the stick framed wall yet but plan to do it very soon, maybe this weekend, and did pick up a 6x6 pull box thinking maybe I'd mount it up high near the ceiling and recess it just the 1/2" depth of the sheathing so I can get a liquid tight elbow in the back of it and straight down to the panel with hard pipe. There will be 2 outlet circuits, 1 light circuit, 1 garage door circuit, and 1 220V circuit for the electric boiler all coming through here before splitting off so I set it up for 1" pipe and will run 1/2" to everything except the boiler will be 3/4" due to the 8ga wires. The more I think about it though, the more I think it's going to look ridiculous with the pull box hanging out there and an octopus of EMT coming out of it while the panel is nice and flush mounted with the sheathing. Anybody ever run into this sort of thing or have some input?
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E Yoder

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Re: Wiring new garage
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2020, 05:41:03 AM »

Sounds like a nice garage. I've never done what you've done mounting a panel in foam. But one huge concern- surely you're not going to heat with electric! Lol.
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wreckit87

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Re: Wiring new garage
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2020, 02:35:54 PM »

I set 4/12 trusses on top and wrapped the whole thing with ribbed steel so it looks like any other shed, same colors to match my shop. Inside is pretty lame looking, all the freezer panels were used so they're beat up and full of butyl caulk (from between the panel seams for moisture barrier when it was a freezer) and have weird holes and stuff everywhere from lights, conduit, evaporators, shelving, refrigerant lines, etc but it works. I was originally going to frame another 2x4 wall inside just to hide all the sin but decided I didn't care that much what it looks like in there, I didn't even paint it. As for the heat, it'll be all electric during shoulder seasons and maybe fulltime if I get sick of burning wood. I did bury 25mm Thermopex over there from the OWB and ran a unit heater last winter but I also have 6 loops in the slab and 3 more loops of radiant on the ceiling. Heat loss of this whole building (1560 sq ft) at 70 inside and -30 outside is only 17,000 BTU so even on electric a bad month would only be $50 or so
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Cabo

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Re: Wiring new garage
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2020, 05:29:52 PM »

I’m currently doing a similar application for a woodworking shop. I did install wiring in the walls and ceiling before insulation and Sheetrock for lights and 120 volt outlets. I ran a 2” PVC conduit from the panel and elbowed out at the ceiling to an 8X8 pull box. From there I will build a conduit system (EMT) as I get a feel for where various machines will go(mostly #10 wire runs). Remember to start from the pull box with a large enough conduit and neck down the sizes the further you go and fewer wires installed. You can also run multiple conduits from the pull box which will use smaller conduit (easier to work with) but might look busier. People who work with conduit regularly make it look easy but it can be frustrating if you use it only on occasion (like myself). Good planning and patience is are two words of advice. Hope this helps.
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RSI

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Re: Wiring new garage
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2020, 10:02:31 AM »

From what you described, I think recessing in an electrical duct from the panel to the ceiling would be as good as anything. Then you can either put a junction box at the top or just run the conduits right into the cover panel.
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