Experienced electrician?

[Cannabinoholic]

Hey guys. I need to get 30 amps to my grow. I know a bit about wiring but this I do not: Do I have room to add anything to my box or should I use 2 existing 15a circuits?

Thanks and any advice is welcome.
Cannabinoholic

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

How far away from this box is your grow? What circuits are presently available near the grow?

 

[Cannabinoholic]

The room is about 10 feet from the panel. I have 3 total 15a circuits in the basement, 2 of which are VERY rarely used. I don't want to take the rest of the power from my unfinished basement, as renovations will be starting next spring. Ideally, I would like to have a 30a sub-panel on the back wall of my room hardwired to the main box.

 

[Cannabinoholic]

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Mrs.Babba]

you should contact Cocktail frank...hes member here, he know alot about all that stuff!
Heres his visitor page, https://www.icmag.com/ic/member.php?u=22889
send him a msg im sure he will help ya out.

 

[Cannabinoholic]

Thank you very much Mrs.Babba.

 

[cocktail frank]

those screw type fuse panels are old school.
but yours looks kinda new.
a lil weird, cuz sparkies round here arent allowed to use those anymore.
it does look like you have 2 open spaces in the fuse block for holders.
if u could find a model # on the panel you could possibly find fillers for those blanks.

otherwise, looks like you have a 50amp pullout in the fuse panel, but it feeds a subpanel w/ a 50amp breaker in it already.
not sure what that is doing, maybe a/c or a stove?
either way, putting 30a on that 50a sub prolly wouldnt be a good idea, unless you shifted around some loads.
maybe double up some smaller circuits w/ lil draw in the fuse panel to fee up a space on each phase for that 30 u want to run.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

So from what I can gather, you have a grow room in one side of a basement. There is a 120 volt circuit running to the grow. There are two other 120 volt circuits in the basement but you want to reserve these for other uses.

Seems the easiest thing to do is to tap into one of these two basement circuits anyway. Look at the location of receptacles in the walls upstairs. You might find a wall outlet for a usable circuit right above a spot in the basement where you can drill up into the wall and tap into the circuit through the back of the receptacle box.

 

[bigsby]

Probably not what you want to hear but if it were me, I'd pull that unit and upgrade the service to 200 amps, install a new breaker box with proper arc and ground fault interrupters where needed and be done with it. You're planning on basement renovations anyway. May as well do it right.

 

[Cannabinoholic]

bigsby - Heheh, I was kind of afraid I would hear that.

cocktail frank - The house was rewired - to code - by a friend of the family. Just moved in and it needed to be done in a pinch, and cheap. Possibly it was all the guy was familiar with? Had the inspector check it out.

The winner just might be Crusader. Just don't have the funds to redo the whole shabang, again. I'll just pull one of the other circuits for now, until I can afford to upgrade.


Thanks everyone

 

[Midnight]

bigsby - Heheh, I was kind of afraid I would hear that.

cocktail frank - The house was rewired - to code - by a friend of the family....

Are you sure about that? I don't know of any municipality in the U.S. where fuses are code. Maybe in some third world country, but not in the U.S. That panel looks like a fire just waiting to happen. A flame defender would be in order!

 

[Cannabinoholic]

I live in Canada and that definitely passed code. It sure doesn't look pretty, but you should have seen it before. lol The whole house is gonna be rewired in the spring, with a new panel.

 

[cocktail frank]

canada explains it.
i said it looked new, which is weird for us.
but our neighbors to the north and we are quite different.
we wear cleats, they wear skates

 

[Cannabinoholic]

Hahaha, love it!

 

[hammalamma]

U need to check what size wire is feeding everything and that will tell you how many amps you can run, and the distance from the service.