I am having a pole barn built, in doing so I contacted my local electric utility and set a new 200 AMP service for the barn (it is too far from the house to grab power from my current service).
I was told to get everything ready for the electric utility so they can come out and put the wires from the transformer to my home.
I live in Rural SW Montana, I have everything set up for them but I wanted to run 2 GFI outlets under the panel so that the barn builders could get power for their tools from these two outlets.
I told my local hardware person this and he provided me with the outdoor outlet boxes, covers, GFI outlets, 2 -20 AMP single pole breakers and all the other stuff I need to accomplish this.
Before the utility folks come to hook up power I was told that I should wire the outlets so they are ready to go once the power is connected to the meter.
My question is, HOW do I wire the GFI outlets from the panel?
As you can see from the picture everytyhing is ready to go I just need to run the wires from the 20 AMP breakers to each GFI outlet respectively.
I dont have any 12/2 wire, but I have some left over 12/3 wire from another indoor project I did a while back.
I assume I can just pull the black, white and ground wire out of the romex protective coating and run it directly. Is that OK?
Secondly, my initial assumption to wire the two outlets is as follows (same schema for each outlet so each is on it's own 20 AMP breaker):
- Black wire from outlet to breaker - White & Ground wires from outlet to the ground bar.
Is this accurate?
I was also thinking I might be able to just use the 12/3 as is and mark the red wire as a black with electrical tape in the panel, and run the white from the bottom GFI to the top GFI and from the top GFI to the ground bar. Is this a better solution?
Any direction is appreciated, I REALLY dont want to call out a electrician and want to get this done before the electric utility crew comes to hook up the power.
if you use two adjacent breaker slots, say 6 and 8, for the GFI feeds, you can wire an Edison circuit. the two hot bus bars alternate in position, so putting the two breakers on top of each other is going to catch both bus bars, one for each phase. since the current goes different directions on alternate phases, a common neutral can serve both 20 amp circuits.
red to one GFI's hot, black to the other, white to both neutrals, ground to both boxes and then to the GFI ground terminals.
per the attached picture, you have both breakers in a correct position, so have at it. try to keep the wire lengths the same, under a heavy load it can prevent false trips (yeah, there's an electrician on here who disputes that, but I've had to rewire a few things in the past to get the wires exactly the same length to avoid nuisance trips.)
around these parts, the power company DOES NOT WANT ANYTHING SWITCHED ON when they install the meter into the base. reason being you can have the next best thing to an explosion if they plug up the meter, and there's a load on that draws anything near rated power for the drop. you can flip the breakers on with test lights in them after the meter is sealed in the base and make everybody happy.
sig: if this is a new economy, how come they still want my old-fashioned money?
OK after staring at the panel for a few minutes, I realized what you meant by "alternating hot bus bars" and how each breaker will touch alternating hot bus bar.
So I understand the wiring comment you made, for the most part anyways
The one remaining question I had was do I run the neutral and the ground wires to the neutral/grd bar in the panel? The red and black wires will each go to an individual breaker but I am unsure if I need to run the neutral (white) wire to the n/g bar in the panel.
Also, do I have to put elec tape on the red wire? Or is it just known that a red is hot?
Again, I am a amateur so thanks for being patient with me and my lay-person questions
white is always neutral, bare or green is always ground. red and black (and just about any other color with the possible exception of grey) are always considered hot wires. red, black, and blue are the most common used for hot wires in a three-phase system.
where your bottom right two breakers are, they are on opposite phases, call them red and black. you could run a single common neutral for everything up to the neutral bus, connect three whites (down to bottom box, up to breaker neutral bar, and a shortie to the white terminal on teh upper GFI.)
it would be my preference to use two separate whites, the same length as the hot wires, one for each GFI. that's because I got real tired of shooting trouble with GFIs about 40 years ago, and had another spate of it in the garage last year.
but that doesn't work if you're running jacketed (Romex) wire, they aren't in there. try it with one neutral and ground connected to feed pigtails in the upper box and more wires to the lower box for GFIs first.
GFI works by detecting a difference in teh current between white and hot. that's why I want no different length wires there. that creates a different resistance in the length, and under the right loads, will cause a false trip.
oh, and I'm also a lay person here, not a licensed electrician. I have been partially journeymanned, and occasionally re-read the code book before I get a project going, but I'm just another DIY.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: swschrad,
sig: if this is a new economy, how come they still want my old-fashioned money?
I just went ahead and tore off the jacket on the 12/3 and cut two lengths of the b/w/g and wired each GFI individually. (disregarding the red)
The GFI are right below the panel so it isnt like the wires had to be too long (18 inches for the bottom GFI and 12 for the top GFI).
I ran the HOT (black) wire to the 20 AMP single pole breaker, the NEUTRAL (white) was ran to the ground/nuetral bus and the ground was grounded at the outlet, then I wrapped it around the ground screw in the outside box and ran it to the ground/nuetral bus as well.
