Running electrical line to attic - need advice

[MrDanky]

Hey there ICMAGGERS...

i am looking for tips on how to run an electrical line to my attic without destroying any walls... there has to be a way to do this, ive tried reading all over the web, just cant figuere out a simple way how to do this...

any tips? im trying to run some thick gauge wire about 40-50 feet from my basement breaker to the attic where i will then hook it up to a subpanel where I then plan on running about 2400 watts (4-600's) ....

thanks in advance..

id love to see a video, just couldnt find one...

 

[MrDanky]

hmm nobody can offer any tips?? i thought this place was where people share information?

 

[smallfry707]

conduit running up the outside of your building then painting it to match your house color.. and hire a electrician .. there are a lot of electricians that are 215 / medical friendly .. ask a hydro store and they could refer you one

 

[madpenguin]

conduit running up the outside of your building then painting it to match your house color

Ewwww........

Ugly as sin....

Find where your plumbing goes up to the 2nd floor bathroom. Maybe you'll get lucky and there will be enough space to use a drop chain.

If there is no easy way, then the only thing you can do (that looks nice) is to start poping baseboards off, knock a hole and drill down through the plate to get you into the stud area below. It's time consuming and you may even have to knock a small hole in the drywall up by the ceiling if your not good at fishing from one hole to another hole, but it can most certainly be "old worked".

Just count on doing atleast some minimal drywall damage. There is no way around it. If your pulling baseboards, in order to get the angle you need to hit the stud space below, you usually have to have a fairly long auger bit and notch the drywall past the top of the baseboard. If that makes sense.... If you drill at too steep of an angle, obviously your going to come out the side of a wall instead of hitting the stud cavity below.

So, unless you have 12" tall baseboards, your probably going to need to do some patching after it's all said and done.

Question: Is all your equipment going to run at 120v or will it be a mix of 240 and 120?

 

[KermitTheHermit]

Hard to say without more information about the building. Two things come to mind.

Punch through to the outside at both locations and run conduit. The conduit can be painted to make it less conspicuous.

Surface wiring inside is another option. There are different types of conduit and boxes and so forth. Once again, it can be painted to match the walls.

Whether or not the appearance of conduit or surface wiring is a problem is something you'll have to decide. This stuff is used for a reason; because fishing wire is not an option, or people don't want to tear up their houses doing so.

 

[PharmaCan]

Madpenguin - while most of what you said is spot on, you seem to be forgetting about the fire blocks in the walls. (Fire blocks are horizontal, stud sized blocks that are about half way between the top and bottom plates.)

To the OP - if you have any gas equipment - a furnace or water heater - in the basement, it is probably vented through the roof and has a pretty good sized area around the vent pipe. If the vent pipe is insulated, so that it doesn't radiate much heat, the channel it is in can be a good route to the attic.

I have a 4' long drill bit that's designed for this type of work. It cuts down on the amount of wall patching, but doesn't eliminate it.

PC

 

[MrDanky]

wow thanks for the replies.i really appreciate them all. im going to snap some pictures for you guys tomorrow and show you what im working with. i plan on running 120v, but i DO have a dual 600 digi ballast that has a 240 that i might sell and replace with 2 seperate 120v 600's. im still trying to decide.

I just need to be able to run about 2400w, plus a lil extra amperage for fans and misc stuff.thanks for the replies, and ill get some pics up tomorrow.

 

[MrDanky]

ok heres what im working with...

two yellow lines run to the bathroom exhaust fan... i have no idea how many amps are designated to them (how can i find out?)

the other box i have no idea what it does...

all in all, i would be able to deactivate the bathroom fan and use that designated power to run some lights... i need to run 2400 watts total.. thats 4-600w ballasts. I originally wanted to run some thick gauge wire up and hook up a 30amp hookup but that plan seems like its going to be thrown out, as I just cannot damage any drywall, and I also think that there is no more room in the main panel to put in another 30amp double pole breaker...

also, there is another power line that runs into the attic and it is connected to a light bulb.. i have no idea how many amps are designated to that line either - i imagine its connected to the lines that go throughout the 2nd floor room...

my question here is:

would I be able to re-wire these lines .. when i say re-wire, i mean, would I be able to hook up some 240v and 120v recepticles which would allow me to run the lights and perhaps 1 8inch vortex? How would I go about finding out? I tried following the lines down to the main panel but I get lost. I am pretty sure that whoever wired this up used a couple different types of wire which confuse me and make it hard to trace them..

anyone have any opinions? I really need to get this figured out ASAP as I have TONS of plants under a t5 that are just dying to start flowering...



thanks in advance

 

[PharmaCan]

That circuit has already been added on to then added on to again. I sincerely doubt you have any usable capacity left. If that cable with the red, black and white wires goes back to your panel, you could use that to get 20 amps of 120v or you could disconnect everything else from it and get a 240v circuit. But then you'd have a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't connected anymore. You could get more space in your main panel by switching some of the full size breakers with slimline breakers, if that hasn't been done already.

That yellow romex is something that was added long after the house was built. You need to determine where those wires go.

PC

 

[Sam the Caveman]

If you can isolate that line to the attic, figure out which one it is in the breaker box, and put it on a separate breaker in the main box, that would probably be the easiest way. If you don't have any more room in the breaker box, do what pharmacan said and try and convert some of the fat breakers to slim ones.

In the event that your panel if full of slim breakers already, you can judge how many amps of each breaker you actually use and rearrange them accordingly. Most people have at least one room they don't use a lot of power in. Working in the breaker box is dangerous, I'd recommend that if you don't feel comfortable about it, hire a professional and save yourself a bad experience.

You probably won't have any problems this winter, but how are you going to cool this grow area in you attic? If you use a window unit or split a/c, you are going to need a 240v line anyways. If you need an electrician to do this, now is the time. Hiding a 2400w grow room from an electrician=dam near impossible, they follow wires for a living.

Another way of running a line to the attic is to disconnect the line ran to the light up there and secure another line to the end of it, duct tape a small rope or another line of romex. Make sure it is fastened well because if it comes loose in the wall, you will have to break the sheetrock. Have someone feed the line from the attic into the wall as you pull it gently in the basement. Once the duct taped portion is completely in the basement, securely fasten a 240v line to it below the duct taped portion. If you tape all 3 lines at the same place, the holes in the studs might not be big enough to take it and get stuck. Now gently feed the line up into the wall as your attic assistant pulls.....and....whalla...new 240v line in the attic.

 

[MrDanky]

thanks for the suggestions/input guys... i have more info..

ok i think i have a couple options...

i noticed that whoever wired this house, put 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and the attic light on one 15a breaker.

i was wondering if i would be able to switch those wires that are powering the lights and recepticles off of a 15a breaker to another 20a breaker that only powers a downstairs room that was once an office but is not any longer.. so simpllified that would be - take lines out of 15a breaker and put into 20a breaker and allow me to get that extra 5 amps of power to use in the attic... the most electric that would be used in the upstairs would be to power the bathroom fan, and the ceiling lights... we dont plan on using any other types of electronics in that upstairs... that is option A) and seems like it would be the easiest thing to do, as i would not have to run any line or drill any holes...

option b)

there is an A/C unit that is attatched to a double pole 30a breaker... it is currently fall here and heading into winter... i dont think i will need the AC for another 6-7 months, so i was wondering if i would be able to dis-connect it for the time being, and run another heavy gauge wire from the attic down to the 30amp breaker that is being currently being used by the AC... then i plan on adding a 30amp/220 dryer 4 prong recepticle on to that heavy gauge wire (im assuming 8 gauge?, please correct me if i should use another gauge)...

i can do this, but my only problem now is figuring out how to run this line down to the breaker box from the attic.. i would love to run it alongside of the house, but the house is just too nice, and the neighbors are just too close for me to do this (plus the house is being rented). As far as causing drywall damage, i am scared to do this.. the house is practically totally remodeled and has all new shit.. i wouldnt mind making a couple holes in the wall, but they need to be very small...

 

[PharmaCan]

Well, it's exactly the same process as described above. If you want it completely hidden, you need to find a route/channel from the panel to the attic. If you don't care if it is seen, hang it from the walls and take a sfe route. This is a mickey mouse installation in a lot of respects but, neither the wire nor the electricity care much if they are inside or outside a wall, particularly in a temporary situation, and you can make it pretty darn safe if you put some thought into it. If it's the right size wire and if it's kept mostly out of reach of people, assuming all the connections are properly made, there's not a whole hell of a lot that can go wrong with wire itself ...but neither do you want someone to be able to play with the wire while in the shower. So, hang the wire high, and use some kind of plastic loop-style hanger and put them up with finishing nails of whatever size you need to reach wood and you'll have a secure cable and an easy repair job when you take it down.

PC

 

[MrDanky]

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

 

[MrDanky]

it looks like someone already took the vent path..

 

[TheMintMan]

FWIW, getting familiar with drywall patching will save you so, so much time and trouble in the future worrying about the logistics of drilling through sill plates, fire blocking, and top plates to run some wire without cutting yourself any holes to see what you're doing. Try not to bust holes right in the middle of a wall and after a few patch jobs you'll be able to make any size hole disappear in a day fairly easily. Sometimes if you create a hole right at eye level and don't float your mud out enough it will be visible, but even then, if you've got flat white walls most people won't notice.

Good luck,
Mint.

 

[RedReign]

Tie a few washers (or something similar) to a piece of string and drop it down the channel the vent pipe is in, hopefully it will come out the bottom.

Also if the existing romex isn't secured inside the wall, you can disconnect one end of it, tape some string to it, pull it up (or down), connect your new romex to the existing romex, and then pull them both through with the string.

Good luck.

 

[MrDanky]

thanks for the advice Red and Mintman....

any ideas what gauge wire i should use ?

 

[MrDanky]

10 gauge?

 

[TheMintMan]

Sorry, I just skimmed through your post so I don't know what sized breaker you're using to give an accurate answer. Google it and you should come up with the result pretty quickly. Or if you go to Lowe's there should be a chart somewhere in the electrical isle. The most appropriate gauge wire to use will depend on the capacity of your breaker.

EDIT: Yes, 10 gauge wire for a 30 amp breaker.

 

[PharmaCan]

If you replace some of those full size breakers with slimline breakers, you can make room for a new 240v breaker. Stick a 40 amp 240 volt breaker in there, run up to a small subpanel in the attic and you'll be set with all the power you'll ever need.

...and then you won't have to disconnect the a/c.

PC