Electrical help needed for running 24O to room

Thanks for taking the time to read this...

I am having my buddy whos fairly decent at electrical work come over tomorow to set me up a subpanel and 24ov so i may run 6 x 1ooo wtts in my garden.

My main panel is 1oo amps as far as i can tell,{ i figured id need 3o amps for the 6 lights
and 2o amps for the 24kbtu a/c i want to put in there.}
So if i could get 55 or 6o amps dedicated,that would be great!! I dont run to many other appliences just fridge.

My friend comming tomorow has not wired a grow room but other semi commercial jobs.

I want above all to have safe setup and im unsure of my buddies plans...
He said he has 1oo ft of #8 and flex he has in his garage we can use { Would this be ideal?}

I have a homedepot card with plenty of room that i can use and pay later so this is great as cash wise im tapped.

I want to have a nice clean panel like the one in the pic
What ideally should i use to do this?
or what would i need to buy?

If you can also explain the jist of how it is put together i can share it with him tomorow
and he can have a roadmap to success

Thanks you so uch for reading/responding you are truely kind for doing so,Cheers HBR

headbandrocker said:

Thanks for taking the time to read this...

I am having my buddy whos fairly decent at electrical work come over tomorow to set me up a subpanel and 24ov so i may run 6 x 1ooo wtts in my garden.

My main panel is 1oo amps as far as i can tell,{ i figured id need 3o amps for the 6 lights
and 2o amps for the 24kbtu a/c i want to put in there.}
So if i could get 55 or 6o amps dedicated,that would be great!! I dont run to many other appliences just fridge.

My friend comming tomorow has not wired a grow room but other semi commercial jobs.

I want above all to have safe setup and im unsure of my buddies plans...
He said he has 1oo ft of #8 and flex he has in his garage we can use { Would this be ideal?}

I have a homedepot card with plenty of room that i can use and pay later so this is great as cash wise im tapped.

I want to have a nice clean panel like the one in the pic
What ideally should i use to do this?
or what would i need to buy?

If you can also explain the jist of how it is put together i can share it with him tomorow
and he can have a roadmap to success

Thanks you so uch for reading/responding you are truely kind for doing so,Cheers HBR

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You might want to post a question like this in the Bricktown73 thread he is an electrician and can give you specifics on what you are needing.

My first thoughts are that if you have a 100 amp panel for your house as a whole you are going to need to upgrade the panel to at least 150 but better 200 amp to run that kind of a setup. If you are pulling close to the max your house will allow all the time your wires will get real hot!! After you have your electric upgraded all you need to do is supply 240 to your lighting controller. Also run some dedicated 120 outlets for your other electrical needs in the room. You could also run your a/c on 240 that will save you a lot. I hope this helps

edit: I forgot to add that if you upgrade your panel make sure you upgrade your riser wires that connect to the electric company. Remember electric is kind of like the flow of water, keep the flow as wide as possible till it is where it is needed.

Thanks for the help Abell,yes actually this thread is a copy of a pm I sent Bricktown,I just wanted to have some kind of back up info incase i didnt hear back from him intime.
Bricktowns work is amazing!
What is involved in upgrading my main panel/service?
Is it just the panel or do i need to call pge and have them do somthing to increase my panel.

Cheers

headbandrocker said:

Thanks for the help Abell,yes actually this thread is a copy of a pm I sent Bricktown,I just wanted to have some kind of back up info incase i didnt hear back from him intime.
Bricktowns work is amazing!
What is involved in upgrading my main panel/service?
Is it just the panel or do i need to call pge and have them do somthing to increase my panel.

Cheers

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It usually means getting a new panel (square D) and the breakers to outfit it. If you go to home depot you will see different setups in the electircal dept. they have like 150, 200, 250 and so forth. They come with some breakers of different sizes but you can pick up exactly what breakers you need for your setup. The electric company shouldn't need to be involved, I am speaking from the American view point though. I am not sure about other countries electric. Make sure you upgrade your wires connecting to the elec. company, very important. To give you an idea when I upgraded a service from 150 to 250 I had an electrician do it and it cost like $1200 with the wiring to my room. I hope this helps

Great info abell!,
12oo is a bit out my range for the time being,but i really only need to get supplies,my buddy said hed do the work for free,but i would still like to give him somthing.
What is the ideal wire to run from pge to main panel,and from main panel to subpaanel in flowerroom?

headbandrocker said:

Great info abell!,
12oo is a bit out my range for the time being,but i really only need to get supplies,my buddy said hed do the work for free,but i would still like to give him somthing.
What is the ideal wire to run from pge to main panel,and from main panel to subpaanel in flowerroom?

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The 8 is fine to the flowering room for sure! The wire from the electric company to paneal is big, real fat and multi-stranded (poss. like 2 or 3). I am not sure of gauge I think it is more rated in voltage, an electrician should have more info on that part of it. If your friend is doing labor for free it will be a lot less than what I said the parts aren't all that much.

It is def good to be over-rated on power this keeps wires cool when you are pulling major power from HID and such and you never have to worry about fires when running a lot of lights.

thanks so much for all your help bro,ill let you know how things go tomorow,cheers

headbandrocker said:

thanks so much for all your help bro,ill let you know how things go tomorow,cheers

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No probs!! Good luck and yes please let me know how it all worked out.

crazy, I just ran my feeder cable for my panel (which is also 240V) yesterday, I did myself a big favour and buy the home depot book "WIRING 1-2-3" it's awesome, it's all to do w/ household wiring but I think it gives ya all the basics ya need to do most things, including wire a grow room. An electrician buddy that I used to work with told me to buy it, (and he wires commercial grows on the side). Everything is in there including running a subpanel etc.. PM me if ya want to know more of how I did it, gotta go to work right now....

I got Hd wirrng 123,!
Im gona do some reading tonight,

headbandrocker said:

I got Hd wirrng 123,!
Im gona do some reading tonight,

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That should help you out a lot. One of the things that you need to be looking at first is the total amount of electricity your house has which I believe you said was 100 amps. Even though you might not use much "other" electricity if your lights are on and you go to cook a pizza in the oven, or turn on the heater or use other high draw appliances for a short time, you will trip breakers on your panel especially if it is not balanced right.


I started about 20 years ago in my first house it had 100 amp service. I am not sure if yours is the same as mine was but I could only run one 1000w light with everything that goes with it pumps, fans, floros, ect. Believe me I tried many things but finaly in the end it came down to what the electrician called "upgrading my service to 200 amp" for what I wanted to do.


So first check that your, I think it is called riser stack wires, are big enough to handle the load you will have on them and you want when you are fully loaded for it to be about 1/2 to 3/4 the total available. If your wires in the riser stack aren't big enough it will be the same thing as haveing a regular water hose hooked up to a city water pipe(3' in diam) trying to fill up a olympic swimming pool. When you could just direct the city pipe in there and have it full in a few min. Hope this help

24000btu air con is 24 amps a 24000btu 2 fan 3 coil water chiller is 4.5 amps you save just on the electric bill.

hectorius said:

24000btu air con is 24 amps a 24000btu 2 fan 3 coil water chiller is 4.5 amps you save just on the electric bill.

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http://www.heatexchanger.ca/images/pdf/LPB_heatexchanger_print.pdf

sorry 4.2 amps

abellguy said:

That should help you out a lot. One of the things that you need to be looking at first is the total amount of electricity your house has which I believe you said was 100 amps. Even though you might not use much "other" electricity if your lights are on and you go to cook a pizza in the oven, or turn on the heater or use other high draw appliances for a short time, you will trip breakers on your panel especially if it is not balanced right.


I started about 20 years ago in my first house it had 100 amp service. I am not sure if yours is the same as mine was but I could only run one 1000w light with everything that goes with it pumps, fans, floros, ect. Believe me I tried many things but finaly in the end it came down to what the electrician called "upgrading my service to 200 amp" for what I wanted to do.


So first check that your, I think it is called riser stack wires, are big enough to handle the load you will have on them and you want when you are fully loaded for it to be about 1/2 to 3/4 the total available. If your wires in the riser stack aren't big enough it will be the same thing as haveing a regular water hose hooked up to a city water pipe(3' in diam) trying to fill up a olympic swimming pool. When you could just direct the city pipe in there and have it full in a few min. Hope this help

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so how do u go about finding out what type of service ur breaker is recievin? 100 amp, 200 amp, etc?????

One thing I want to say before I go any further I myself am very wary of working on my electric panel cause of the obvious dangers!! Cause of what we do it sometimes called for SO a good thing to keep in mind is if you keep yourself from sweating 1 and 2 keep one hand behind your back while you are working on the panel UNLESS you are TOTALLY sure there is now power there, you should be ok.

You have to get down to the part of the panel where you can see the wires connecting to the breakers and even then there sometimes is another small panel covering the mains. The mains are big wires, real big and stranded you can use a multi meter and check these wires where you are checking should be completely before the panel and unless the power has been shut off by the power company will always be hot so be very carfull. Use a multi meter and check for amperage. Remember be very carefull when working on your panel or electric at all, if you have any doughts you should have an experienced electrician help you out with this. Hope this helps

abellguy said:

One thing I want to say before I go any further I myself am very wary of working on my electric panel cause of the obvious dangers!! Cause of what we do it sometimes called for SO a good thing to keep in mind is if you keep yourself from sweating 1 and 2 keep one hand behind your back while you are working on the panel UNLESS you are TOTALLY sure there is now power there, you should be ok.

You have to get down to the part of the panel where you can see the wires connecting to the breakers and even then there sometimes is another small panel covering the mains. The mains are big wires, real big and stranded you can use a multi meter and check these wires where you are checking should be completely before the panel and unless the power has been shut off by the power company will always be hot so be very carfull. Use a multi meter and check for amperage. Remember be very carefull when working on your panel or electric at all, if you have any doughts you should have an experienced electrician help you out with this. Hope this helps

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thanks for the reply abel...

ya that sounds alil more in depth then i like to get with the breaker box.

u think i could just call power company and ask?

jtreezy420 said:

thanks for the reply abel...

ya that sounds alil more in depth then i like to get with the breaker box.

u think i could just call power company and ask?

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The power company doesn't know what your electric service is. They just supply power to your riser stack and an experienced electrician takes it from there. The only reason the power company is involved is to disconnect your main power if you are going to have your electric panel upgraded. Basically they just cut the wires that connect to your house. Then an electrician comes in and puts new wires in that go to where the wires were cut by the electric company then the electric company comes back and reconnects those wires and now you have upgraded electric service.

Only reason I know about all this is cause I have been through it at a few places that I have been at and I am not an electrician. I have been the pest asking them all the questions. LOL Hope this helps

your 6 lights are going to draw more like 65 amps or so, each 1kw light is like 10.5 amps...plus the ac then addd 20% to the top of the load and its looking like a 100 amp pannel for the room alone

If i run everything 12O yes,but I am running all 24O should need 3o for lights and 2o for a/c its 13 amps...I found a 4o amp master light controll/timer/subpanel prewired for 1oo bucks each ,which is about the same as buildin it but already put together,i was thinking run 1 x 4o amp subpanael for lights,and 1 x 4o amp sub panel for a/c's and gear..Would that be work well?
I could sworn i asked pge what my service was and they said 32o but that doesnt sound right cause the panel is 1oo?
I dont get it,im asuming the person was wrong but you tell me...

headbandrocker said:

If i run everything 12O yes,but I am running all 24O should need 3o for lights and 2o for a/c its 13 amps...I found a 4o amp master light controll/timer/subpanel prewired for 1oo bucks each ,which is about the same as buildin it but already put together,i was thinking run 1 x 4o amp subpanael for lights,and 1 x 4o amp sub panel for a/c's and gear..Would that be work well?
I could sworn i asked pge what my service was and they said 32o but that doesnt sound right cause the panel is 1oo?
I dont get it,im asuming the person was wrong but you tell me...

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The PGE guy is probly talking about the service you could recieve at your house, in other words if you wanted to turn your house into a industrial factory you couldn't get that much electricity there.

If you don't get permits and stuff you can add as many sub-panels to your system that you want the problem is you aren't really getting more power even though you are adding outlet spots. All you are doing is dividing the total power you have available into even smaller chunks if that makes sense.

Think of it like this right now there is a water pipe that delivers 100 gallons an hour to your house, as you divide it more and more the flow gets less and less. The only way to increase the flow to all those newly added "divisions" is to add more gallons per hour at the source. Electric works exactly the same way. Hope this helps