Quick question for electicians

[trompet3]

How much should I expect to pay to have an electrician add a new 50 or 100 amp circuit breaker? My current one is 100 amps and has no room for any more circuits.
I would have them set up all of the circuits and wiring out of the breaker box. All of the circuits will go through the wall next to the box and set up in that room. I can do that part.

 

[swatskee]

well, one easy task (probably the cheapest) would be to have someone wire in a sub-panel, meaning they will tap off of your 100amp service and wire in another new enclosure. You can add a couple circuits in the new enclosure. I'm guessing you are not pulling 100 amps for your house. to have 200 amp service with another enclosure you would have to have your electric company come out and rewire the lines coming to your house, then have an electrician wire in the service to your house.
all depends.......... If you are only looking to add a single 15amp circuit i would go with the first choice. It will save you money and it can be done in an hour by anyone that knows what they are doing.
another choice is you can replace a full size circuit breaker with 2 half size.......
you will still need to run the wire & outlet to the tank though, so add another hour.
just my thoughts (i am an electrician)
swat

 

[trompet3]

Will the electic company charge to come out and rewire the lines to the house?
I have not moved into the house yet, but I thought that pulling all 100 amps would not be hard. That isn't even up to code for new builds.
First option - If I did have the electic co. come out and then have an electrician wire in the new service, how much would that cost? As long as the box is pre-wired, I can run the wire & outlet to the tank.
Second option - how much would it cost to wire in a sub-panel?

 

[swatskee]

they'll charge ya, no question there.
sub-panel is what i'd do/did. under a 100.00 for all the parts. make sure you get a qualified electrician to do the job... rates can be a wide range, 30/hr to 50/hr on average (non union). look in the yellow pages. you can save $$ if you supply the parts. go to HD and ask them to spec out a panel for ya, free of charge.
my house is 80yrs old, so 100A added about 5yrs ago. if you are not running any crazy equipment in a garage or anything, it's would be hard to believe under normal situation that you would pull 100A in your house at any given time??
IMO,
swat

 

[acrylic51]

I don't know if the electric company itself will rewire the house for you.......But depending where you live prices may be higher for electrician.. You could pay around $75.00 an hour. Another simple suggestion would be to remove 1 or 2 existing breakers and run piggy back breakers in there place.... What I mean is the breaker still takes up the same amount of space in the box (1 space), but it's actually 2 seperate breakers. Therefore you would have 2 extra circuits and still keep the same box.

 

[beaver]

You can set up all the stuff you want and just pay some one to come out and hook it to the box for you... that would be the cheep way to go :yes: No worries about getting shocked if your not even dealing with anything live. Head to home depo and ask for a book about it. Or try the library, lol dose any one still go there?

 

[trompet3]

Do each of those piggy back circuits run at half the amps?

 

[swatskee]

Originally Posted by acrylic51
Another simple suggestion would be to remove 1 or 2 existing breakers and run piggy back breakers in there place.... What I mean is the breaker still takes up the same amount of space in the box (1 space), but it's actually 2 seperate breakers. Therefore you would have 2 extra circuits and still keep the same box.


[hr]
as i said in my first response...............
swat

 

[farmboy]

Originally Posted by trompet3
Do each of those piggy back circuits run at half the amps?
No, they interupt current at their rating. Just like any other breaker.
Are you all talking about the double space breakers?
They are great!
100 amps isn't unbeleivable with an electric furnace added into the mix.

 

[trompet3]

Well, I was able to get some more info on the electicity of my new house (moving in 3 weeks). The previous owner installed a 225 double breaker (not sure how many amps) for his hot tub. They are taking the hot tub and I won't be using that 225 circuit(s).
Can I just disconnect the wiring at the breaker (capping the exposed ends with a wire nut), leave those loose ends in the wall, take out the 225 breaker, put a 115 breaker in its place, then wire that to my fish room? If so, is there anything else I should know about doing this? I read in a book that the breaker needs to be balanced on both sides (?) and I'm far from an electrical wizard, so I'm trying to cover my bases. I have friends that could help with wiring (if they know they can do it), but want to know things will be right in the planning.
One more question - lets say for the sake of discussion I use a 20 amp breaker. Also, lets say that I want to have 5 duplex receptacles in the fish room. Do each of the receptacles need to be 20amp receptacles? Also, can they all be wired in series (first to the second to the third, etc)?
Thanks again.

 

[swatskee]

balanced load means that eash leg of you service coming into your house has the best equal load on each "hot" leg. If you notice coming into your panel, there will be 2 hot wires and a common. put a meter across the hot and you get your 220vac. If you reference from the common to 1 of the hot legs, that's where you get you 120vac. i wouldn't run more than 5 outlets on a 20 personally, but it's not uncommon to run 10 of them. (check with your local code though) All of the outlets need to be rated at 20 amps, and run 12ga with ground. You may also want to use a GFCI breaker in the panel.

SWAT

 

[trompet3]

Thanks for the reply.
What about this?
Can I just disconnect the wiring at the breaker (capping the exposed ends with a wire nut), leave those loose ends in the wall, take out the 225 breaker, put a 115 breaker in its place, then wire that to my fish room?
The only thing about the GFCI is that if I am out of town and it trips, the power won't restore until I get back and reset it. The way I have it now is that everything is on a GFCI except for the return pump, lights and heater. That way I know the tank will not crash in the meantime. Any thoughts on this from anyone?

 

[farmboy]

Remember, everything downstream from a GFCI acts like a GFCI. So keep this in mind if you don't want certain things on GFCI. If you install a GFCI breaker, EVERY outlet on that circuit IS a ground fault receptacle-for all practical purposes. A comprimise may be to use a regular breaker and install a GFCI outlet somewhere downstream from the pump, lights and heater that you mentioned. If that GFCI outlet trips, it only deenergizes things downstream from it.
OPINION: All my aquarium electrical accessories are on GFCI. My personal safety is more important than my tank inhabitants.

 

[trompet3]

Originally Posted by Farmboy
Remember, everything downstream from a GFCI acts like a GFCI. So keep this in mind if you don't want certain things on GFCI. If you install a GFCI breaker, EVERY outlet on that circuit IS a ground fault receptacle-for all practical purposes. A comprimise may be to use a regular breaker and install a GFCI outlet somewhere downstream from the pump, lights and heater that you mentioned. If that GFCI outlet trips, it only deenergizes things downstream from it.
OPINION: All my aquarium electrical accessories are on GFCI. My personal safety is more important than my tank inhabitants.

Thanks, that's how I have it set up currently.
Anyone have opinions on this?
Can I just disconnect the wiring at the breaker (capping the exposed ends with a wire nut), leave those loose ends in the wall, take out the 225 breaker, put a 115 breaker in its place, then wire that to my fish room?

 

[acrylic51]

Originally Posted by trompet3
Do each of those piggy back circuits run at half the amps?
No the piggy back breakers are 20amp each. There super nice because the only take up the space of 1 breaker instead of 2...I will take pic tomorrow and post to explain.

 

[acrylic51]

For the hot tub circuit and again I'm no electrician, but I'm pretty sure you have 2 hot wires going to the breaker??? You would only need a hot to a 20amp breaker

 

[acrylic51]

I have to disagree somewhat with what was said earlier about only running 5 outlets on that circuit... What difference does it actually make how many outlets are on the circuit as long as you don't exceed 80% of the breaker capacity???? You can push it past the 80%, but most electricians will advise not to do it......But again that is why you might want to consider several seperate circuits for your fish room

 

[acrylic51]

Pics of lighting for fishroom on it's own circuit. 6 recessed lights on 1 circuit and 2 outlets sharing the same circuit over the tank in the filter room. The 2 outlets sharing the circuit with the lights are the outlets on the inside (middle). Pics coming!!!!

 

[acrylic51]

Pics of outlets sharing same circuit with overhead lights for fishroom. These outlets will be used for misc... stuff

 

[acrylic51]

I have 3 additional breakers that i'm using to power the fishroom. I did this to put my pumps on separate circuits with certain lights to prevent from loosing all my lights or pumps at one shot..... The 3 outlets above the right side of the tank will be for 2 MH and VHO and they are wired along with 1 of the 3 gang outlet sets on 1 of the walls in the filter room. The left side above the tank is wired to the other outlets on the wall to control the the other 2 MH and VHO's and the main return pump..... The CL pump will be on it's own circuit with additional outlets for use in the main viewing room...
Kind of redundancy, but this way I think it would be hard for the entire system to stop completely