Any electricians in da' hizzzouse?

[waverz]

As most of you know I am now running 3 400 watt metal halides and am coming to find out that its a lot more than I had bargained for. I had planned on running a whole new circuit to my tank and have everything wired to its own 2 separate breakers. Well I opened up my box and guess what, there no empty spaces for anymore breakers. There is however a subpanel in my crawlspace that has breakers for my AC and stove, I was going to add some more breakers there but no room there either. It sounds like I am going to have to install another sub panel just for the tank. This don't sound like too much fun to me, but ill do it. I came home today and the lights were off apparently i burned up the outlet they were plugged into, so now i gotta go in and fix that one as well as do all the other stuff.

 

[Coralfreak]

Umm, you may need to look into kicking up your service, dont know what you have now, typically its 100amp, may need to go to 200amp, this IS NOT do it yourself, only a certified electrician can do this, I was actually very close to needing to do that, we were seriously pushing the limits of a 100amp service.

 

[glaspie69]

Where is the wire located "in the house wise". You might be able to re-run a heavier gauge wire and bump up the size of the breaker. If your only running a 15 amp breaker theres no way it will hold 3-400's but if possible you should be able to bump it up to a 30 amp and run the whole tank off it.

 

[glaspie69]

oh and just a safety note DO NOT DO THIS.......PLEASE call me, if you burn your house down your wife won't let you have anymore tanks and then i'll have no one to talk to

 

[waverz]

Thats what i am afraid of, being i have a glass blowing studio in the garage and now this tank with all the lights and pumps it looks like i may have to call up my uncle the electrician. I can tell already, this wont be cheap.

 

[got2lb]

Yep what Allen said!

Your sub panels will still be pulling off your main panel. Which like he said more than likely is a 100 amp panel if not a 60 amp. I believe you're only supposed to run at 80% of the rated capacity of the panel. So if you have a 60 amp panel the most you should run is 45 amps. 80 amps for 100 amp service.

Might not hurt to get an electrician over there and check things out! Just ask them for a quote to see what it would cost to do what you're thinking, they'll let you know if it's possible or not.

Just so you get a rough idea, to run a new loop (wire/meter) into my house and have a 200 amp panel put in and everything wired into new circuits. NO REWIRING inside the house. Just putting things on different breakers. They quoted me $2000 Of course that's Clarksville dollars I'm sure waterloo area dollars it will be more!

 

[waverz]

Man thats really sucks, it might be time to run the extension cord over to the neighbors.

 

[jtesdall]

Hold on guys, I spent many years as an electrician both residential and industrial and grew up doing it as my family are electrical contractors in Ames. Most homes built in the last 15 years have 200 or 150 amp electrical services. Only very small dwelling would have 100 and maybe an outbuilding would have a 60. Hello my moring building has a 100.

Jeremy, what kind of panel? What size circuit are we dealing with that has problems? If you have run out of space in your panel, most manufacturers (Square D, GE, etc.) have double breakers (2 breakers in the space of one) you can replace one of the existing to get more space. This might cost $10-20.

I just got home and have to do a water change (Nitrates remember), I will re-read your post and get back to you.

 

[waverz]

After further inspection i didn't burn up any outlets at all. I realized that the outlet my lights were plugged into was on a different circuit than the rest of my tank and flipped the 15 amp breaker.

Here is a picture of my main breaker box. The top left 50 amp goes to my shop and the bottom left 50 amp goes to a sub panel for my AC, stove and basement.

I wonder if i could replace the 15 amp with a 20 or 30 and replace the wires with larger gauge wires? Doesn't sound like too much fun but it doesn't sound to complicated either.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/waverz/breakerbox.jpg

 

[Double-J]

Try to find an electrictian that you can trade some glass work for his work. I know there are electricians out there that wouldn't mind a nice tobacco water pipe

 

[jtesdall]

OK, I'm back for a few ....

Three 400 watt bulbs is 1200 watts / 120 volts is 10 amps. A 14-2 (wire size)/15 AMP circuit should hold this without a problem. But with other equipment on your reef, you are right, you should have two circuits giving you 30 amps available. I would doubt you even have another 10 in the other stuff depending on the size of pumps and heaters and so on, for a total of 20.

Anyway, like Jason said, you can run 10-2 over there for a 30 amp circuit and then split off several outlets. Legally you will need to have outlets that are rated for 30 amps, hmmmm I forget you may need commercial receptacles.

However, it would be easier to run another 14-2 (copper is hellishly expensive now) for another circuit and give your lights their own. Buy a double breaker or two for your panel to give more space.

What is the size of the main breaker in your home? If you want, you can run down the major electrical devices in your home and I will give you an idea is you are good on load. I highly doubt there is a problem, but don't know what kind of equipment you have for your business.

For example, I am running my home on a temporary 60 breaker and 60 amp wire fed into a 200 AMP service. I am still in construction phase. This has no problem with a 1900 Sq Ft. home with 3 tom AC. electric dryer, tons of aquarium and tons of computers. In the winter I even have several heating cables and water tank heaters and have never had a problem with this is four years. (Yes I know I am slow to get things done, I am a busy guy. ;0))

Now for a VERY important question ..... what do your mean by "burned up the outlet"? Do you mean like black and melted meaning extremely hot or fire???? Again you halides will draw about 10 amps, so if you burned up an outlet there is another reason, like other things plugged into the exact same outlet. This is my main concern with what you have said. I'm with Jason, we don't want your house burning down.

Feel free to email me - jtesdall@mapcon.com

 

[jtesdall]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10570813#post10570813 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tinytool
Try to find an electrictian that you can trade some glass work for his work. I know there are electricians out there that wouldn't mind a nice tobacco water pipe

:rollface: :mixed:

 

[waverz]

Bwaaahahaha, not a bad idea i guess.

Joe, turns out nothing burned up, i just flipped a breaker. I currently have my lights hooked up to a separate outlet that is on a sepqrate breaker from the rest of my tank. I didnt realize it was on a separate breaker so i assumed i burnt it up when it didnt work. After i posted i looked at my breaker box and realized i had a flipped breaker..glad i didnt start tearing into things.

Thanks for your help!

 

[jtesdall]

Hmmmm, so 3-400 watt halides tripped a 15 amp breaker? It shouldn't, must not be Square D.

Let me know if you need any help.

 

[waverz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10571054#post10571054 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jtesdall
Hmmmm, so 3-400 watt halides tripped a 15 amp breaker? It shouldn't, must not be Square D.

Let me know if you need any help.

Its not Square D and it looks like a really old breaker, i have some new extra Square D's in the garage, think i am going to switch it out tomorrow and see what that does.

 

[leeweber85]

i thought you were going to bed.

 

[jtesdall]

Square D will only fit a square D panel as far as I know. There are two types of residential Square D breakers. If you have another makers panel your breakers won't fit. If they do fit, then the panel is square D. I could be outdated on this, but I don't think so.

 

[waverz]

Ahh ok, some breakers say square D on them the others don't.

 

[Coralfreak]

Just a little note, 3-400W halides do not always equal 400W and a 15 amp circuit may not enough, you need at least 20 to be safe. Many ballasts run over the 400W and "overdrive" the bulbs a little. This is mostly true for standard M59 ballasts, also the case with M135's. I had 3-20amp circuits for my 225 and this worked out fine.

 

[xroads]

Never fear man it isnt that bad. The electric company has to provide the wire to the meter. You will have to buy a new box ($150), and maybe a new meter box ($80), and the wire (?????). I am going to need a ton of frags pretty soon so I can help you this fall if you want to do it.