Running Electrical to Shed

YJJPWrangler

YJJPWrangler

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2005
Location
Charlotte
My 12x28 got delivered on Monday. Wanting to run power to it from my main panel in my garage to a subpanel in the shed. I'll be doing woodworking out of it. Planning on running LED lights. Highest amp draw that I can think of is table saw(15amp) and shopvac(12amp) running at the same time. Distance from panel to panel is roughly 150'. I was thinking of a minimum of 50amp service from the house to the subpanel. I will not have any need of 240 in the subpanel.

So questions.
-What size wire? I was thinking 1/0 3 wire.
-What size breaker(other than 50a?)
-I'm going to run it in conduit for any future expansion so I only need to bury it 18" down.

Thoughts?
 
Just did this very thing to my building. I think it was 2/0 mobile home aluminum feeder wire. Think it's rated for 100 amp service. I have a 75 amp breaker feeding it but can upgrade to 100 amp later if I need to. I also ran a water line and a cat6 wire in the trench while I was at it. Just dont cut your main power lines in half with a trencher like I did lol.

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YJJPWrangler said:
I will not have any need of 240 in the subpanel.
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First thing I'd do is rewire the saw to 240. It also opens up the possibility of bigger saws/air compressors/vacuums/etc in the future. If nothing else, you run one extra wire and get twice the power.

Also, run fiber, not cat 6. A couple of fiber/ethernet converters cost about $25-30/ea on Amazon, another $20 for the fiber, fewer worries about ground-induced surges in the future.
 
X2, go ahead and run the wire for 240 in the future, even if you never use it, price difference is negligible at this point, and you never know what you'll get into in the future.

Also x whatever on fiber/cat, water, and an air pipe if the compressor is there.

My shop has its own meter but I buried a water pipe and phone line out to it. Don't have water in the shop(sink or bathroom) but it's nice to wash hands at a spigot by the door vs walking all the way to the house. I wish I had run cable and or fiber back then too. I wouldn't need the wireless internet set up I have now.
 
@shawn I have a bosch contractor's saw that I'm pretty sure I can't convert to 240. But the ability to have it in the future would be nice and shouldn't cost too much more to run. No need for air lines in the trench as I have a pancake compressor already down there. No need for fiber/cat 6 down there either as I can hotspot my workphone or just walk up to the house. Water line would be very difficult to add as there isn't a supply line on that side of the house.

Planning on digging by hand. My backyard is a maze of sprinkler pipes, fiber, and power lines. Ground is fairly soft and it shouldn't be too difficult. I will have to cross underneath my driveway but when the previous homeowner installed sprinkler system, they cut a trough through the concrete. I've already broken up most of the concrete in the trough by hand, apparently they used grout :shaking:. Little to no rock content and they didn't get the subgrade right as the entire trough settled from 2-4".
 
While you have an open trench either put any pipe or wire in there you can think of or put a conduit in for future needs. Also under that driveway put a 3''-4'' PVC sleeve for future use also
 
Got most of the trench dug yesterday. Just gotta get it to depth in certain areas now. 107' from house to building so I'm planning on buying around 120' of mobile home 4 wire. That's a good idea @R Q about adding another conduit under the driveway.

Another question for the group, this is my first time pulling a permit. For rough electrical, I need to install the subpanel(ground rods), wire from panels to outlets(not hooked up), conduit and wire in trench(but not hooked up to main) and leave the trench open. Anything else?

After rough-in has passed, I can hook everything up, cover the trench and schedule the final. Is that correct?
 
run a 240V line out there and split it as necessary in the shed sub panel.

and I believe NEC says 36” depth unless it’s in duct bank. @Ron can likely elaborate more on those requirements. But when we had a need to bury electrical lines at work, we couldn’t go less than 36” without duct bank
 
rockcity said:
run a 240V line out there and split it as necessary in the shed sub panel.

and I believe NEC says 36” depth unless it’s in duct bank. @Ron can likely elaborate more on those requirements. But when we had a need to bury electrical lines at work, we couldn’t go less than 36” without duct bank
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Depends on voltage, cover, and whether it's direct bury or in a raceway.
 
I was in the same boat with my shed 2-3 yrs ago. I dug a trench about 175ft from my house to my shed. Code required it to be 20" deep inside plastic conduit. I decided to 'call the man' when it came to doing the electrical work since I don't know anything about it. He left all the lights unhooked, all the outlets unhooked, and the conduit in the trench visible, and I called for the inspection. I'm not sure what size wire he ran, but I told him I might use the shed as a wood workshop one day and didn't want to ever come close to running out of power.

Here is a picture of my electrical box in the shed.

PXL_20201023_152133333.jpg
 
So more questions. Just got off the phone with mecklenburg county code and they couldn't give me a correct answer on the depth of conduit underneath my driveway. I have a french drain that is right at 18" down right in the middle of my driveway trench. I want to run the conduit on top of it and repour the concrete. Common sense says that this shouldn't be an issue but Meck county says it needs to be at 18" so I would have to remove the working french drain which I don't want to do.

Planning on running 240v in PVC at 18" the rest of the run which is to code. Guy on the phone said I might get a good inspector that would let the driveway portion work but who knows.
 
YJJPWrangler said:
So more questions. Just got off the phone with mecklenburg county code and they couldn't give me a correct answer on the depth of conduit underneath my driveway. I have a french drain that is right at 18" down right in the middle of my driveway trench. I want to run the conduit on top of it and repour the concrete. Common sense says that this shouldn't be an issue but Meck county says it needs to be at 18" so I would have to remove the working french drain which I don't want to do.

Planning on running 240v in PVC at 18" the rest of the run which is to code. Guy on the phone said I might get a good inspector that would let the driveway portion work but who knows.
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I believe under driveways it needs to be 18", anywhere else under concrete you can go pretty shallow. He might be cool and not consider the drain a driveway or let you run rigid and bury it shallower. Def need to have him stop by.
 
The code is pretty straight forward here
300.5
Says a driveway serving a 1 or 2 family dwelling minimum burial is 18" regardless of whether its direct burial, non metallic, or even rigid. If its under a driveway its got to be 18" deep.

And if hes a stickler that's from grade not the top of the concrete adjacent
 
Fun stuff. Just found my sewer line. 15" deep to top of pipe. How in the FUCK does the city get away with that but I have to bury my electrical deeper. Looks like I'm gonna have to tunnel under the stupid thing. :shaking:

Is it normal to get an inspector to stop by before roughin? I would like to get his opinion on the driveway stuff before I put anything in the ground.
 
I had to tunnel under some gutter drain pipes and a couple of roots to.
 
YJJPWrangler said:
Fun stuff. Just found my sewer line. 15" deep to top of pipe. How in the FUCK does the city get away with that but I have to bury my electrical deeper. Looks like I'm gonna have to tunnel under the stupid thing. :shaking:

Is it normal to get an inspector to stop by before roughin? I would like to get his opinion on the driveway stuff before I put anything in the ground.
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Electrical is deepest because it's the most dangerous.
Plumbing only has to be 12" iir.

Is this where I tell you if it's a city sewer line you got a fine coming and an epa issue? 811 is free...
 
Danger_Ranger said:
Just did this very thing to my building. I think it was 2/0 mobile home aluminum feeder wire. Think it's rated for 100 amp service. I have a 75 amp breaker feeding it but can upgrade to 100 amp later if I need to. I also ran a water line and a cat6 wire in the trench while I was at it. Just dont cut your main power lines in half with a trencher like I did lol.

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Did you run your Cat6 cable along side your power wires? I always had heard that was a no-no for interference, but that may be old-school.
 
Ron said:
Electrical is deepest because it's the most dangerous.
Plumbing only has to be 12" iir.

Is this where I tell you if it's a city sewer line you got a fine coming and an epa issue? 811 is free...
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I just found it, didn't damage it at all. It's my sewer line that feeds from the back of my house down to the city connection. Don't really know where a fine/epa issue will come in with just uncovering a 4" PVC line

According to my neighbor, years ago they had a bad sewage backup and they replaced the entire line. Pipe looks brand new.

I've called 811 to locate the backyard before but they never located the sewer line(last 6 months)
 
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That's your sewer line lateral, city just owns the tie in and everything down stream. As long as that's all you hit just need a fernco and you good. Take a pic of where it is while you got it uncovered so you can remember in two years. Sounds like you have everything in your way.
 
YJJPWrangler said:
I just found it, didn't damage it at all. It's my sewer line that feeds from the back of my house down to the city connection. Don't really know where a fine/epa issue will come in with just uncovering a 4" PVC line

According to my neighbor, years ago they had a bad sewage backup and they replaced the entire line. Pipe looks brand new.

I've called 811 to locate the backyard before but they never located the sewer line(last 6 months)
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My bad, I thought by found it you meant cut it.
Fine/epa comment was because Mecklenburg county.
There's a reason I have crews in Kentcky, Georgia, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas but refuse to work 20 minutes from home....
 
@Ron had me worried for a minute. I’ve dealt with all kinds of utilities for work so I know the dangers/fines etc. one of my crews hit a main sewer on N Tryon. That was a FUN day.

trench is dug. Everything is right at 20” or so to bottom of trench. The only high spot is right under the driveway because of the French drain. If I have to I can always cut the drain on both ends, pick it up out of the trench, set the conduit line below it and then reinstall drain. Not ideal but its a solution.

plan is to pick up conduit, panel, outlets, and wire tomorrow. Going to schedule my building inspection for next week and hopefully I can talk to the inspector before I get my electrical rough in.
 
ManglerYJ said:
Did you run your Cat6 cable along side your power wires? I always had heard that was a no-no for interference, but that may be old-school.
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I did, but the electrical is inside a 2" conduit. And the cat6 is direct burial wire that I already had, it has a thicker coating and more shielding in it. But I'm only gonna be hooking a WiFi booster or something to it so it should be fine. And also when I cut my main power lines in half they were only 16" under the ground.

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YJJPWrangler said:
Is it normal to get an inspector to stop by before roughin? I would like to get his opinion on the driveway stuff before I put anything in the ground.
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Most places will be fine with a consultation, but you happen to live in the Great State of Mecklenburg. They operate by a different set of rules there and somehow manage to get by. I know tons of contractors here who refuse to set foot in that county.
 
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