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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, really? It takes me at least 15 minutes to hacksaw through a pipe and then thread it. Even if you have appropriate power tools to cut the pipe, I can't imagine that being cost-effective vs. dropping the $7 or whatever on a storebought nipple. I guess it makes more sense if you'd have to run to the hardware store, but if you do this professionally I'd expect you'd buy such things in bulk so you'd always have them on-hand. Did you have to make your own couplings too? But yeah he was cheap. Part of why I don't work there, or do commercial work anymore. 
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Sep 30, 2016 03:35
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I tried that, actually. The pipe clamp and pipe threader combined take up enough pipe that the minimum length of pipe I can work with is maybe 5-6". Thread one end of a long pipe. Cut off a section exactly as long as you need for the nipple. Thread the long pipe again. Thread the nipple into a coupler, and thread that onto the long pipe. Thread the other end of the nipple. Now you're only limited by the clearance of the threading tool alone, and the wrench needed to take the nipple back out. Buy close nipples as needed, they aren't worth the hassle. Also use a pipe cutter for less end prep, but at this point none of this is worth much for this project. One Legged Ninja fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Oct 1, 2016 |
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Oct 1, 2016 16:25
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...yep, that'd work, and have much less chance of getting tool oil all over my nice woodworking vise compared to angryrobots' otherwise-good suggestion. Something to keep in mind when I inevitably decide "okay, I built a workshop, that means I can build a house, right?" thread. 
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Oct 1, 2016 17:06
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Yeah that's a better idea, lol. It's been a long time ok. :p
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Oct 1, 2016 17:57
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:...yep, that'd work, and have much less chance of getting tool oil all over my nice woodworking vise compared to angryrobots' otherwise-good suggestion. Something to keep in mind when I inevitably decide "okay, I built a workshop, that means I can build a house, right?" thread. Just add water!
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Oct 1, 2016 21:20
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Bought and installed the ground rod today -- a 8-foot-long, 5/8" thick steel rod with a copper jacket. I read some horror stories about how hard these things could be to install, with people rigging up ad-hoc water drilling systems or renting a jackhammer to install theirs. I'm on clay soil, so it was maybe 20 minutes with the sledgehammer to get it almost all the way buried. I'll leave it like that until it gets inspected at least, then maybe bury it the rest of the way. Also bought a length of EMT and some compression fittings to connect it to the RMC at the wall penetration, and to the main and sub panels. That should be the last conduit-related purchase I need to make; fingers crossed.
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Oct 3, 2016 00:51
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Had an electrician stop by and look at the job. He quoted $100/hour and estimated 5 hours of work to punch a hole in the wall, run conduit down to the panel, and hook the panels up. He might also have been including fishing the cable in there (I'm planning to run a cord through the conduit though, which should greatly simplify that), but even so that seems kind of high for a time estimate. I may not have a lot of choice though; I start my new job next Monday and would really like to get this taken care of before then. The other electricians I've reached out to haven't exactly been communicative.
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Oct 3, 2016 18:03
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Speaking of not wanting to work on unfused lines, there is now an extension cord running from our service lines to a box on the ground that is powering our refrigerator.  I'll take a picture later.As for working in the panel, it's not that bad. Maybe ask your utility about if you're allowed to pull your meter for a day to do the homeruns?
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Oct 3, 2016 22:44
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So it begins: https://imgur.com/a/PohuN - One day of work by one guy. Not shown are all the faceplates are off in the house, holes are cut for new outlets, and he appears to be vac'ing as he goes which is nice. I left him a shopvac with brand new HEPA filter+bag which he is using, even though he scoffed at me when I showed it to him. Tomorrow it's going to be a crew of people actually pulling wire, trenching, etc. When I went by earlier in the day he had the temp power hooked straight to the service lines. Free juice! (I assume his temp power box has some kind of fuse in it.) Assuming they can get all of the wire pulled tomorrow I don't see a reason this won't be 3 days + 1 day of patching post inspection. I can not post these here if you want, don't want to hijack your thread. You're mentioning stuff like this so I thought you would be interested.
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Oct 4, 2016 02:33
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Nah, it's fine by me. It's an interesting contrast with what I'm doing. Incidentally, scheduled that electrician to come in Thursday. Between now and then, I "have to" (read: want to) buy lights + switch + outlets + boxes so I can start work on rigging up a lighting circuit, and I need to fish the cable and finish the tail end of the conduit. It's only like 4' inside the workshop, but I put my conduit entry right next to a stud, so the fittings are giving me fits trying to make the 90 up to the circuit box. Pretty sure I know what I need to do -- put in an LR box connected to the exterior LB box using a close coupling. I'm getting a little tired of making Home Depot runs though.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:02
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It is totally fine to change direction as you describe, with a 4x4 junction box.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:53
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Nah, it's fine by me. It's an interesting contrast with what I'm doing. Arm sweep the fittings into your basket, keep the receipt? Set a calendar reminder for the return window. God speed on the remainder of that RMC.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:56
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angryrobots posted:It is totally fine to change direction as you describe, with a 4x4 junction box. The difficulty is in using something that I can screw onto the threads of the nipple that penetrates the wall, since I have so little room. But the LR box will do fine; I tested with an LB and the only problem was that the access to the interior of the box was facing down, 6" off the ground. Could've made it work if I had a right-angle screwdriver, I guess, but whatever.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:12
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The electrician came by today. While he worked on penetrating the house wall and connecting conduit to the main panel, I worked on installing a lighting circuit in the workshop. Then we came together to do the cable pull. Had a scary moment where it looked like I'd be short on cable -- the company that sold me the cable gave me a white cable that was at least 5' shorter than the black, despite them nominally all being the same length. But I ended up with several feet to spare. Mental note: for future cable purchases, either get one bigass spool and cut conductors to length (and to hell with having nicely-colored cables), or overestimate my orders by more than 10%. Anyway, we got the cable pulled, he installed a breaker in the workshop panel, I flipped the lightswitch...and the breaker's GFCI triggered. So I'm gonna have to fix up my circuit. But the important thing is that the workshop has power; I can tinker with the circuits over the next several weeks. Also, angryrobots: the electrician complained about the 90 elbow-with-pull fittings I'd used, because they make for a really sharp turn compared to using an LB. So you were right to recommend those. In general I get the impression that fitting 4x 6ga THHN into a 1" conduit was right about at the limit of what he thought was reasonable; the code's allowance for up to 6 such conductors in a 1" conduit was apparently only realistic for a perfectly straight run. Incidentally, he replaced the LR box I'd installed with an LB. His solution to the "no room to rotate anything" was to put a short bit of EMT between the exterior LB and the interior one. Wish I'd thought of that.
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Oct 7, 2016 01:54
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Anyway, we got the cable pulled, he installed a breaker in the workshop panel, I flipped the lightswitch...and the breaker's GFCI triggered. So I'm gonna have to fix up my circuit. But the important thing is that the workshop has power; I can tinker with the circuits over the next several weeks. Check for a neutral to ground short at the light. If you've got a multimeter, disconnect that circuit's neutral at the panel and make sure isn't touching anything grounded there, untwist all your neutrals on that circuit, then set your multimeter to continuity and keep testing every neutral wire against ground. Eventually you will find the neutral that is touching ground. It helps to start in the middle of the circuit, then keep dividing it in two until you find the culprit.
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Oct 7, 2016 02:29
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kid sinister posted:Check for a neutral to ground short at the light. If you've got a multimeter, disconnect that circuit's neutral at the panel and make sure isn't touching anything grounded there, untwist all your neutrals on that circuit, then set your multimeter to continuity and keep testing every neutral wire against ground. Eventually you will find the neutral that is touching ground. It helps to start in the middle of the circuit, then keep dividing it in two until you find the culprit. Thanks for the advice. I'm basically going to be pulling apart everything around the motion-activated light anyway. The light fixture inside the shop isn't the problem, since I cut it out of the circuit and the GFCI still trips. I'll narrow it down, per your advice. Where'd my multimeter get to...? Also time to unwrap the no-touch current detector wand, perhaps. At least, it'd be good to get into the habit of checking for current before I touch things, just as a matter of ritual even though the circuit breaker is like 5' away.
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Oct 7, 2016 03:17
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Spent much of yesterday and today working on electrical circuits for the workshop. I now have a perfectly functional lighting circuit, and one completed outlet!  Project done, that's a wrap.  (That stray cable running down from the box in that photo is now connected to the other lighting box/fixture)More seriously, I need to finish adding outlets, of course. I'm planning to put in a few overhead outlets so I can run devices in the middle of the room without having a cord running across the floor. Before I can do all that, though, I'll need to get more cable; it turns out that about 2/3rds of the cable I bought from the scrapyard* is 10/2 (that is, 2 conductors and a ground in 10 gauge wire, incidentally in blue/white/green colors) which a) is ridiculously hard to bend, b) is ridiculously overkill, and c) doesn't fit the cable clamps I have. I might still need it for the 220V circuits; haven't done the research on that yet. But for standard 15/20V circuits, 12/2 cable is just fine. I just don't have enough of it. * Scrapyard cable is vastly cheaper than Home Depot cable; if I recall correctly it cost me $2/pound for metal-clad cable, which works out to something like $20 for 100 feet or so. You just...need to make certain you're buying the right product, since none of it is labeled. EDIT: bonus shots taken at dusk:  
TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 22:48
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Very nice! How did you find the scrap yard cable? Google scrap yard? Thinking of you... I can tell the precise moment the electrician decided it was quittin time. 
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Oct 9, 2016 04:50
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H110Hawk posted:Very nice! How did you find the scrap yard cable? Google scrap yard? quote:Thinking of you... Wow, that's some pretty chunky flex conduit there. I guess it's easier to work with than EMT, and if it's all gonna be covered by drywall, then gently caress it, why bother making it look nice? Your subpanel has a much more rational number of slots for circuit breakers than mine does. I think I would have serious trouble setting up 24 circuits off of this thing.
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Oct 9, 2016 04:59
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, that's some pretty chunky flex conduit there. I guess it's easier to work with than EMT, and if it's all gonna be covered by drywall, then gently caress it, why bother making it look nice? Everything about this is way overkill for what I will eventually wind up using this for in the end. I figured go big or go home since I had a trench open. 100A input breaker. Perhaps radiant heating, A/C, and a TIG welder in the back room is next on the list. 24 circuits in your workshop sounds pretty high (though based on what my dad describes he did to his workshop... normal.) You know about daisy chaining outlets right? Maybe not for the high draw / always on stuff (dust collector, welders plural, A/C or heater, air compressor/neighbor comradery generator) but you're pretty unlikely to have most of the misc 120V stuff on at the same time. check out the routing on that smaller flex for the 20A coming out the bottom of the panel
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Oct 9, 2016 05:24
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H110Hawk posted:You know about daisy chaining outlets right? quote:check out the routing on that smaller flex for the 20A coming out the bottom of the panel Oh, right, you're actually putting sheetrock up in your place.  Apologies, I was a little out of it last night when I first saw that photo.
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Oct 9, 2016 14:14
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Ha, yes, I'm not that naive. The plan is 1 lighting circuit, 2 normal outlet circuits (one for the left half of the room, one for the right half), and two dedicated high-voltage circuits. The high-voltage stuff is still speculative though, as I don't yet actually have any tools that can use it. God speed. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sfc/sss?query=220v
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Oct 9, 2016 14:47
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Haha, first result on that page is for a deep fryer. The perfect addition to any carpentry shop!
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Oct 9, 2016 15:05
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H110Hawk posted:check out the routing on that smaller flex for the 20A coming out the bottom of the panel
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Oct 9, 2016 15:11
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The high-voltage stuff is still speculative though, as I don't yet actually have any tools that can use it. Sounds like a perfectly good reason to buy yourself a welder if you ask me. Christmas is coming up...
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Oct 9, 2016 17:01
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This project isn't dead, but it's hit a lull and I'm a little worried the thread will fall into the archives, so here's a low-content update. My progress in the past few months has been limited to installing lights and outlets. I have one outlet circuit with 6 receptacles on it; once the rain lets up a bit I'll be adding a 7th on the outside of the workshop for running electrical gardening tools and so on. And I've started the second 120V outlet circuit; the plan for that one is to put 4 receptacles on ceiling joists, so I don't have to run cords out to the wall for tools in the middle of the room. Eventually I'll need to figure out what's involved in installing a 220V line, but that's not my highest priority right now. Actually, higher priority is probably to improve my tool and lumber storage situation, since the workshop's a complete mess and I can't really clean it up until I have homes for everything. Otherwise, I've actually been using the workshop for its intended purpose; in the past few months I made a couple of mallets, some puzzles and other gifts for my nephews/nieces, and a simple bookshelf. Photos from the woodworking megathread:   
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Jan 8, 2017 01:38
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Actually, higher priority is probably to improve my tool and lumber storage situation, since the workshop's a complete mess and I can't really clean it up until I have homes for everything. Also nice wooden things.
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Jan 8, 2017 04:32
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All of the 120V outlets are installed, finally. I am not the greatest electrician in the world. I used a frankly excessive number of 4x4 boxes.  That's one 4x4 box per a) wall outlet, and b) pair of ceiling outlets. For a long time I thought I couldn't have more than a three-way split in a box, because I couldn't find wire nuts that took more than 4 12-gauge wires, and you need 1 wire per branch plus one to ground the box. But I wasn't looking hard enough. Oh well. Of course, normally you wouldn't have many branches if any in a single circuit (you'd just chain cable between outlets, but I was irrationally afraid of drilling through my wall studs, so here we are. I also added an exterior outlet, which will make electrical yard tools a lot more pleasant to use. Naturally this involved punching a hole in the wall. Exterior outlets have to have covers on them which have enough space to keep the outlet covered even when something's plugged into it, which adds a lot of height to the entire structure; to compensate, I recessed the box in the wall. Outline marked, ready to let rip with the jigsaw:  Rough hole cut:  Cue a lot of creeping up on the right size for the box. I ended up using a rubber mallet to force the box into the hole, so it's pretty well wedged in there. That's a good thing, too. The intended way you secure the box to the structure is by screwing these little metal tabs into holes on the back of the box; then you screw the tabs to the wall. But I managed to twice snap a screw head off while screwing a tab down, so for the time being I'm just saying nuts to that and relying on friction to hold it in place. There is an awful lot of friction holding it in place; it's not going anywhere. Anyway, once the box is in it's just a matter of putting a outlet in, installing the cover, and applying caulk.  It doesn't stick out much; just enough room to flip the cover open and access the outlets. In the end I have 3 flex cable clamps (used to secure the cable to a box) and about 10' of flex cable left over. Meanwhile, Pavlov is not impressed:  Remaining work: technically a 220V circuit is marked on the plans, but I'm going to hold off on that until I have some actual 220V tools and know where I want to put them. Aside from that, I just need to wire up the grounding rod I buried near the panel, and put some trim and a doorknob on the door/doorway. Nearly there!
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Jan 16, 2017 00:53
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Final inspection has come and gone. As far as the city is concerned, this project is finished. Since my last update, I have
The inspector puttered around a bit, looked at the framing, the siding, the wiring, and the subpanel, but didn't ask anything to be opened up. He looked through my plans, shrugged, said "Well, it's your first building, looks okay to me." And that was it. In hindsight, 220V service is probably out of the question anyway, without putting in a lot of work. I only ran 3 #6 THHN conductors to the subpanel, so that's hot, neutral, and ground -- no second phase. Adding a fourth conductor might not be doable with the 1" conduit I'm using; per code there's plenty of room, but in practice, with as many sharp corners as my run had, just running the three conductors was pretty hard. I'm a little bummed about this, but considering I still don't have any remotely concrete plans to make use of 220V power, I think I'll be OK. That said, next time I run conduit I'll probably spring for 1.5" at least. If I recall correctly, it would've been an extra $100-200 to use 1.5" rigid conduit for this job, which is peanuts really.
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Apr 12, 2017 22:28
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Final inspection has come and gone. As far as the city is concerned, this project is finished. Congrats. That's a big step, especially in a place like SF. The "it's your first building" comment probably has a lot to do with some overbuilding/overboxing and the amount of time it's taken since the permit was opened. It looks really good, and you should be quite satisfied to get to work on your projects in something you put up with your own 2 hands.
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Apr 12, 2017 22:47
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Long-time follower, first time poster. Good job!
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Apr 12, 2017 22:54
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Final inspection has come and gone. As far as the city is concerned, this project is finished. Congrats!
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Apr 13, 2017 00:28
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Congrats duder! Your construction is part of my inspiration for building my own workshop on my newly bought land (in a few years.)
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Apr 13, 2017 01:12
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Thanks, guys! I posted the build on imgur as well. It's nothing you haven't seen before, but in a more condensed form. Now I just need to remind myself that I should enjoy what I have for at least a few years before I go thinking about building a house from the ground up...
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Apr 18, 2017 03:40
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Good job dude
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Apr 18, 2017 06:01
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:Long-time follower, first time poster. Same here. Good job! For what it's worth I have 220 in my workshop that came with the house and I have never gotten around to utilizing it (the 220)
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Apr 18, 2017 17:17
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Congrats! You even made an imgur post about it that isn't crappy construction thread worthy.
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Apr 18, 2017 19:04
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Congrats on everything!
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Apr 20, 2017 04:09
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