• Scam Alert. Members are reminded to NOT send money to buy anything. Don't buy things remote and have it shipped - go get it yourself, pay in person, and take your equipment with you. Scammers have burned people on this forum. Urgency, secrecy, excuses, selling for friend, newish members, FUD, are RED FLAGS. A video conference call is not adequate assurance. Face to face interactions are required. Please report suspicions to the forum admins. Stay Safe - anyone can get scammed.
  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Calgary Area Meetup is set for Saturday July 12th at 10am. The signup thread is here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

Electric panel questions.

ShawnR said:
I just noticed the red Tuck tape. Apparently, in Ontario, that is no longer code. We now have blue Tuck tape to meet the new code.

Someone needed to justify their job I guess and ran out of code amendments so decided to change the tape colour. Good for another year or so before another decision needs to be made......:rolleyes:

:)
Click to expand...
For real?
 
I think red is thinner and less sticky and was developed/tested/certified for exterior building wrap, while blue was developed/tested/certified for interior PE vapour barrier.
 
Perry said:
I didn't want to derail the "Garage heater install" thread so I've started a new one.

Some of you have probably been thru this and may have answers or info to share.

My house is an older house from around 1940. Small panel with the meter inside the house. The insurance company uses this excuse to justify their high policy premiums.

I've built a new 24' x 24' garage and it will be needing power. So the plan was to install a new panel in the garage and feed a sub panel to power the house. (The insurance company will need another excuse.)

The estimator was here today. Just thinking over what we talked about and I think I remember him saying the feeder from the garage to the house panel will be aluminum.
Reading on the web it says it can be either copper or aluminum. Pros? Cons?

Also he suggested a 100 amp service in the garage. If you go larger you need to contact Enmax to confirm that the transformer in your area has enough capacity to go with a larger service. Enmax has confirmed I am good for 200 amps? What do I need? I could see a possible electrical vehicle charger down the line. I'm into machining as a hobby and presently work on smaller items but you all know how that goes. (Maybe I'll find a $500 milling machine locally that needs 9'X9'X10' of space. lol )

The panel I have now for the house has six screw in fuses. (90 amp? 6 fuses X15 amp? I'm guessing here.) The dryer and stove are gas . Gas furnace. No other big loads.

Thoughts on panel size?


Just to add to the story , seeing I was digging a trench for the electrical I decided that I might as well run the gas line at the same time. When my friend did his electrical it was a 4" wide trench 20" deep. I was expecting the same. My trench needs to be 18" wide 20" down. The gas and electrical need 12" of seperation.

Haven't got the actual cost of this yet, but I'm sure it won't be cheap.
Click to expand...
I'm in Calgary. I'm setup just like you want to be.

1962 bungalow, originally had a 100A service to house. built new garage in 2007 and had the service relocated to the garage. House is a 100A subservice off main panel in garage. Feeder from garage to house is aluminum. As long as the correct lugs for aluminum wire are used and the electrician uses Naolox or other anti-oxidizing compound on the connectors its no problem. The big benefit is COST as the aluminum is usually MUCH cheaper than copper. My feeder is a USEB90 cable.

In terms of your house panel size, get as many slots for breakers as you can for your 100A panel size. Same idea in garage. IMO.

When I upgraded my house panel, I pulled a homeowner permit - since the house was a subservice off the garage I was allowed to do the panel replacement in the house on my own with inspection afterwards. This is allowed in Alberta anyways.

funny story, the 60+ year old cable from the pole to the house 100a meter was snipped off and then immediately reused by enmax to run the 200a service to the garage.

Doing this service relocation and 200A upgrade was the best thing I spent money on IMO. Shop has plenty of power. and 100A for 1100 sq ft house is plenty.

EDIT: I now see @Perry original post was from Sept of 2021. Lol. My bad. Anyone in Calgary on the forum that is planning on doing this in the future is welcome to come by and see my setup. I was VERY involved with the entire process; I sourced and ran the conduit and cable to the house with guidance from the electrician, replaced my own house panel on a homeowner permit, etc etc.
 
Last edited:
Johnwa said:
In Calgary I believe the main panel has to be done by a licensed electrician, The home owner can do sub panels though. As a DIYer I won’t touch aluminum, copper is way more forgiving.
Click to expand...
This is 100% correct. The permit for a service relocation must be 'pulled' by an electrician with a masters ticket. In my case the company owner was the guy with the masters ticket and sent his journeyman out.
 
curmudgeon said:
I think red is thinner and less sticky and was developed/tested/certified for exterior building wrap, while blue was developed/tested/certified for interior PE vapour barrier.
Click to expand...

Not sure of the specifics. I was told by the building yard that the blue is the new code, and the inspector backed it up. No one specified interior or exterior so I used it both. As you say, I think it is is stickier and thicker. That was my first thoughts when I started using it.

@Darren I guess you have miles of the red!! I doubt it is a durability thing. But I am guessing.


As for electrical in Ontario, all electrical can be done by the homeowner, (mounting and connecting of meterbase (house side) and in) but he cannot have help. As part of our current reno, I moved a meter base so it is fresh in my mind. I got it all ready for Hydro (meaning mounting of the new base, and inside connections with new supply lines to the old panel, and they came, disconnected the old base supply, ran new wires to my new base, and then reconnected. But, a homeowner can get advice, or help pulling the heavier supply line, as I did, but otherwise, it must be done by himself. Technically, I could not even go pull wires for a friend. As with all inspections, (and inspectors) there may be some leeway here but technically, no help means no help. OR the homeowner can hire a contractor to do the whole job. As I type this, I am thinking that, a homeowner may be able to get a permit for a service install and have that done by a contractor, and then a second permit whereby he states he is the one doing the wiring. Say, if one was not comfortable with the installation of a service. That would add more cost to a job ie, 2 permits, but not the same as having a contractor do a whole house.
 
Last edited:
Shawn i was told that the homeowner permit thing was to prevent backyard/unlicensed electricians from doing side work. The work at my buddies place was too nice, no violations, and the inspector grilled him about who actually did the work.
 
Darren said:
Shawn i was told that the homeowner permit thing was to prevent backyard/unlicensed electricians from doing side work. The work at my buddies place was too nice, no violations, and the inspector grilled him about who actually did the work.
Click to expand...
yep, I heard that too when that came into effect. Probably more to it than that if one gets into the details but that is the essence. The inspectors have been finding and busting a lot of non licensed guys doing work lately. They do look for it so if your friend did a great job, but yet seemed unfamiliar with basics, then that is a flag for them. Good that he does nice work. But usually a few questions about how things were done and if the guy can state confidently how it was done, then they know the guy actually did the work and there should be no issues. They like to see nice work. It goes a lot to say about the stuff which cannot be inspected. I have seen some panels installed by guys that essentially knew little or nothing about electrical before, but do such careful work, and ask questions, that their work looks what we would consider "professional". I have also seen panels done by "pros" that look like they were amateurs so it comes back to the " care" factor. Some do, some don't. Wire one house or one garage and you will be able to answer any question the inspector throws at you. He is not trying to trap you, just insure you did the work.

I have always done my own wiring, 2 garages, 2 buildings, and several renos so have met several inspectors. They have all been great, even one known for being a grumpy old guy. ;)

It is a little disappointing that I cannot go over and help a friend pull wires or nail in boxes, but I guess that that leads to a slippery slope....

Just my 2 cents
 
In New Brunswick a licensed electrician is required to even drill the stud holes. Repairs, including outlet change etc are required of an electrician. This may be my new course in life after we move there - I have wired 3 or 4
Houses and 3 or 4 shops, cottages and changed
Service panels in a few places. Then several years farting around with super power on ships -

Have to see if I can get 3 phase at the new shop!! ;)
 
Brent H said:
Have to see if I can get 3 phase at the new shop!! ;)
Click to expand...

I thought your new place was in the sticks. Might be easy. Might not. Should be able to tell if you have any chance of 3ph by looking at the power lines going past your place. Three wires up top and one further down is a very good sign.
 
Perry said:
Well this project is still going along.....slowly. Life gets busy. It has really cut into my machining hobby. I'm not complaining. Last year this time I was wondering if I was going to beat the weather.

So in the end I decided to drywall most of the low traffic areas and put up OSB in the areas where I would be doing a little more work. Regular OSB would not be fine for me so I did a few test samples and this is what I came up with.

The two on the top row are my favorites. Only difference is one has an oil based Varathane, the other is water based.




View attachment 28207

This idea was taken from a Youtube video that could be found here...


So I went down to pick up my OSB last night and when I got home I realized something has changed on the smooth surface of the OSB there is an obvious coating now.

My test pieces were done on some scraps left over from when the garage was built in 2015. These do not have the coating. I'm pretty sure the coating will mess up my plans.

Took the OSB back to HomeDepot and went to check out the other dealers. Not too much luck. It appears the other brands are doing the same thing. I did notice that the tongue and groove OSB (which is quite a bit thicker) does not appear to have this coating.

It's funny that when I was checking out the Rona (The old Totem on Edmonton trail) I noticed they had a sheet of OSB put up as a divider when you walk out the lumber yard. This did not have the coating and has obviously been installed there for a while.



So I come here to the wise wizards of knowledge. I need 6 sheets of 7/16" (I could use 3/8" if it come down to it.) OSB without the coating. Can I buy it with out the coating? Where can I find old stock? Ideas? Thoughts?

This is the last wall. Drywall is done. Painted. Looking pretty good. All sockets on finished walls and ceilings installed. Just this last wall holding me up now.
Click to expand...
Thanks for reposting this @Perry interesting! and I like it.
 
Good Job!

I did the main and sub panels in a previous house, the inspector stated that I did a better job than most electricians:)

Went on to say some of the new electricians will make some flagrant violation, and then argue with the inspector until the cows come home that he should pass it.

This stuff is not rocket science and the rules for the most part are sensible. Doing it yourself in your own home/shop is motivation to do it right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top