Electrical questions in designing my room

[disposition84]

First time poster, long time lurker.

I have my room setup for the most part but am currently running an extension cable from another room to run my two 600w digital ballasts (extension cable is only 10ft). My room is currently all wired on one 15amp breaker and if I try to run my two lights and other accessories the breaker trips rather quick.

After reading up I would assume that I would be advised to hire an electrician to come out and divide the plugs into different breakers? I'd like to avoid having to have someone come out to the house for obvious reasons, but my breaker box is in the garage and room in the basement. So I guess my questions are this:

Can an electrician upgrade my room from just the breaker box, without having to go into the room itself for inspection or anything? Can he just add 2 15amp breakers to the box and rewire the plugs themselves to these new breakers? I'm legal to grow, I'm more just worried about the safety of my wife and self if were to get "jacked".

Would it be possible to do the upgrade myself? I'm rather comfortable with electronics and small time repair, but the idea of working on the breaker box is a bit intimidating.

If I were to hire an electrician how much would adding two more breakers to the rooms existing 4 outlets cost in the Denver area?

If it's cheap enough I'd like to hire a professional. If it's easy and safe enough I'd like to do myself. If it's just better advised to KISS and just use a high gage shorter electrical enxtention cable, then I might just end up doing that.

Thanks!

 

[TrichromeFan]

The electrician will definitely want in the room. My advice would be to wrap up what you have going in there, then between runs have the electrician come in. Otherwise, you can do it yourself. Do you own the house?

 

[disposition84]

I own the house, and it's 3 years old so all the wiring is basically brand new.

I wouldn't mind trying to do it myself as I'm fairly comfortable around electronics.

Although high current stuff does kind of intimidate me a bit.

If it was something like installing two more breakers and detaching and reattaching the right cables to those new breakers I would feel confident with something like that.

Safety of my family and neighbors is paramount, so if an electrician is the best way to go then that's the route I'll take. If I can be guided in the right direction and it's safe enough I wouldn't mind trying though.

Thanks for the help!

 

[deacon1503]

This isn't a difficult task. Do some research, buy an electrical book at The Depot or Borders and tackle it urself. Its a double win for u; u learn about power and no one sees ur grow.

 

[disposition84]

I've been doing some research in my spare time. I guess I was just curious to get a quick opinion on weather or not it's worth messing with it myself. I have to go by HD today anyways so I'll check out their books and see.

Thanks

 

[Legallyflying]

Ok so here is the deal, not rocket science but don't mess with your panel while stoned.

The appliance you run on a circuit measure load in amps. Each circuit has a breaker of a certain amount of amps. Typically you can run 80% of the stated breaker amperage without a problem. Your lumateks run 6 amps each so your pushing 12 amps already. You could maybe run a small pump or fan but nothing else. Since you have. New house and new houses are built like shit I'm sure you have 14 gauge wire; that limits the amount of current you can run through the circuit. You could buy a 20 amp breaker and gain a little more juice from the circuit but di NOT push more than 20 amps least the newspaper read..stoner burns down new house to grow weed.

The better fix is likely just run another circuit to your grow room. Not hard but not fun snaking wire through finished walls either. As an alternative to fishing the wire you could
simply run it through plastic conduit. Buy a 20 amp breaker and 12 gauge wire -lower #s are thicker. Shut off the main breaker and take the cover off the box. Use a little circuit light to make sure there is no power running through the box. There WILL be power in the thick ass wire heading to the main breaker so ummm don't put your tongue on it or anything. The new breaker will just push in place. Just wire it like the rest of the breakers.. Typically the black wire goes to the breaker and the white and ground screw down to the bars.

Just google how to wire an outlet, it's stupid easy. The wire runs from one outlet to the next. You should never need a junction box.

If your running hydro this is a better setup as if your light burns out and trips the breaker your pumps and fans etc are still running on a different circuit.

If your going to do it (you should) then buy yourself of Klein wire strippers with the curved handle on one side. Nothing worse than wiring with shitty wire strippers

Cheers

 

[cindy99 king]

just up the breaker to 25 amps

 

[TrichromeFan]

Up breaker to 25 amps? Noooooo!

Potential melt down and fire there!

 

[Legallyflying]

Wasnt me, thanks for further clarifying some of the electrical ins and outs. I think I skipped over the details as I was kind of like "this guy won't follow direction anyways" :) Some of the questions, like run length, I just skipped over as there was no way of knowing.

But then I saw the post about "up it to 25 amps" and was a little horrified for sure. Electrical stuff is intricate but not terribly complex for most single family home set-ups. That said DO NOT FUCK WITH IT unless your certain that you know what your doing.

Too those that are saying "whats the big deal running a 25 amp breaker?" The deal is this..the wiring in the walls is likely not rated to carry that load.. So what happens?? Well, the wire gets WAY to hot, melts the sheath around the wire, and then it starts the wood studs its attached to (by code) on fire. (that is why I said don't do it lest the newspaper headline says "stoner burns down house".

One thing I have done to insure that I don't overload breakers is if I have a group of circuits connected together, and I know I will be running a big load on one of them, I write down the remaining available amps on the downstream outlets.

Example: I have a 20 amp breaker that leads to a outlet on the outside of my grow room for my twin 600 watt ballasts (roughly 12 amps) then the wire feeds two more outlets inside the grow room.
I wrote " 4 AMPS REMAINING" on those two outlets, just so I don't stone out and one night just plug a big humidifier into those outlets.