breaker/wire size for heating element

SSBrew - 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
M

maxtor

Member
Joined
May 6, 2015
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
I'm getting different answers from people around me so wanted to check here.

I'm wanting to run a 220v 4500W heating element. It's all located about 8' away from the main breaker panel and the heating element MAY be running for up too 2 hours straight, nothing else running on this breaker. My plan was to run 10/2 wire off a 30amp breaker but I'm being told by a couple people, that I shouldn't run any less then #8 wire and a 50 amp breaker. Someone else is telling me that if I go with a 50amp breaker that it will be a fire hazard because if something goes wrong with the wire getting hot or something, it won't flip the breaker.

The element is only going to be about a 21 amp draw, so don't see the need for a 50 amp breaker. Can someone PLEASE shed some light on this.......

Thanks
 
I have a 30amp breaker run my 5500w heating element to run my electric brewery and I use 10 gauge wire. If you are running two 4500w heating elements or anything that pulls more than 30 amps you’ll need to bump up your breaker and wiring.

You can also check out theelectricbrewery.com for wiring answers.
 
Rockn_M said:
I have a 30amp breaker run my 5500w heating element to run my electric brewery and I use 10 gauge wire. If you are running two 4500w heating elements or anything that pulls more than 30 amps you’ll need to bump up your breaker and wiring.

You can also check out theelectricbrewery.com for wiring answers.
Click to expand...

See, that's what I thought. Didn't make any sense them telling me I need to run a minimum 50 amp breaker and #8 wire for only one 220v 4500w element.

Appreciate the reply
 
There is an accepted electrical ampacity chart online located here:
http://www.cerrowire.com/ampacity-charts

I think generally you don't want to exceed 80% capacity of a wire, however that % is only acceptable depending on wire type, length, and temperature it is subjected to. I follow that rule for just about everything except for outdoor wiring.

Im not an electrician, so if any certifed e-1 pros would like to comment and or correct, I take no offense.
 
Working the problem backwards.

4500 watts from 220 volts = 20.455 amps. Using this chart:

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

You can put 22 amps through 16 gauge. your plan for 10/2 should be more than adequate.

The other big ass wire recommendation comes from when the guy is building your house and puts in a 50 amp breaker, they do not know anything other than you might want to draw 49.999 amps. So they size it for that.

If it were my system, I would put in as fat of a wire as is practical. Someday you might want to add to your system, It would be nice if you could get away without doing a complete re-wire.
 
I agree with Rufus. The added cost to upgrade from 30A to 50A (breaker & wire) is small. You'll like the ability to add capacity later on if needed.
 
RufusBrewer said:
Working the problem backwards.

4500 watts from 220 volts = 20.455 amps. Using this chart:

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

You can put 22 amps through 16 gauge. your plan for 10/2 should be more than adequate.

The other big ass wire recommendation comes from when the guy is building your house and puts in a 50 amp breaker, they do not know anything other than you might want to draw 49.999 amps. So they size it for that.

If it were my system, I would put in as fat of a wire as is practical. Someday you might want to add to your system, It would be nice if you could get away without doing a complete re-wire.
Click to expand...
unless you live in a commercial building mst US residential homes end up with 240v (or close to) and a 4500watt element only draws about 18 amps in the real world... at least the three different ones I have do... 5500w elements draw between 22-23amp in most cases. (the elements are always slightly overrated I've found.)

I now run a 4500w element along with an 1800w rims element at the same time and still have plenty of amps to run 2 of my 24v dc pumps and my control panel all off the same circuit.... 30a can work just fine and depending on the cable run it can be very costly and alot more work fishing 6awg wire vs a run of 10/3

I do have 2 4500w elements in my brew setup but unless someone is spending 9 hours brewing back to back batches there is no need to ever heat the bk and HLT at the same time.

and in most cases 16 gauge wire is NOT rated for 22amps... even 12gauge romex is only rated for 20amps... 16 is more like 10 amps if I remember right. 14 is good for 15 and used in the walls of most homes. inside your box twisted strand wire is rated for more amps but I would still not use 16awg for a 22 amp draw... most use 12 gauge for element wiring.
 
I'm reading a lot of extreme stuff......... You are under 20 amps..... who uses 8 gauge wire for a 20 amp load??? Come on, get real!!! 12 gauge is more than enough in this case. Note that the run is extremely short. The charts......... which show 12 gauge as being enough do not take the length of the run into account. On this extremely short run you have a large margin of safety. These charts are designed for normal household runs far longer than this.
If you go with 10 gauge, have no fear............ It's overkill.................


H.W.
 
I just read the first post now... I though the op was wanting to run a control panel not just one element... in that case SJ or SO wire is the proper wire for a cord that will move or be flexed... 10 or 12g is rated for 25A depending on which type you go with and they sell it at the home depot.
 
augiedoggy said:
unless you live in a commercial building mst US residential homes end up with 240v (or close to) and a 4500watt element only draws about 18 amps in the real world... at least the three different ones I have do... 5500w elements draw between 22-23amp in most cases. (the elements are always slightly overrated I've found.)

I now run a 4500w element along with an 1800w rims element at the same time and still have plenty of amps to run 2 of my 24v dc pumps and my control panel all off the same circuit.... 30a can work just fine and depending on the cable run it can be very costly and alot more work fishing 6awg wire vs a run of 10/3

I do have 2 4500w elements in my brew setup but unless someone is spending 9 hours brewing back to back batches there is no need to ever heat the bk and HLT at the same time.

and in most cases 16 gauge wire is NOT rated for 22amps... even 12gauge romex is only rated for 20amps... 16 is more like 10 amps if I remember right. 14 is good for 15 and used in the walls of most homes. inside your box twisted strand wire is rated for more amps but I would still not use 16awg for a 22 amp draw... most use 12 gauge for element wiring.
Click to expand...

There is a difference between what you can do with long runs in the walls of your house and what you can run in a project box, as point to point destinations. That chart I linked made that distinction.
 
RufusBrewer said:
There is a difference between what you can do with long runs in the walls of your house and what you can run in a project box, as point to point destinations. That chart I linked made that distinction.
Click to expand...

Yes very true... I looked at the chart and saw that after the fact but figured as much.
The length of the wire matters and also if its free standing with nothing against it... I still wouldnt trust a 16 awg wire inside my panel carrying 22 amps... Its likely to get toasty in there.. its just me though.
In any case the OP is asking about an 8 foot length of wire from his main panel to the element and the chart you shared doesn't apply unless I missed something?
 
augiedoggy said:
Yes very true... I looked at the chart and saw that after the fact but figured as much.
The length of the wire matters and also if its free standing with nothing against it... I still wouldnt trust a 16 awg wire inside my panel carrying 22 amps... Its likely to get toasty in there.. its just me though.
In any case the OP is asking about an 8 foot length of wire from his main panel to the element and the chart you shared doesn't apply unless I missed something?
Click to expand...

Your know it is not as if I recommended he use 16 gauge wire. I told him to use as large as was practical. The 16 gauge was a reference for the minimum size.

That chart says 16 gauge is 4 ohms per thousand feet 10 gauge is 1 ohm per thousand feet. On a 33 foot run, do you think the difference of .1 ohm of friction is a big deal?
 
Proper sizing of wire and breaker depends on the potential short-circuit current, which also depends on the length of the run. Longer runs demand fatter wire to carry the same amount of current and not overheat.

You do not want to size it too high or too low. Too low and you are in danger between the load and the breaker, i.e. using a small-wire extension cord for a 50 meter run can set the cord on fire. Too high and you are in danger between the breaker and the supply, i.e. you overload the circuit but the breaker doesn't flip and you get a fire or explosion on the north-bound side of your main breaker box.

There are devices that profession electricians use to test the short-circuit current before certifying an installation as safe and approved for use, generally manufactured by Fluke. And then, there are barstool electricians who have all sorts of wildly varying opinions, as you have already seen.

Do yourself a favor, if you don't understand the math, and hire an electrician for an hour or two.
 
Hate to break in here...

The rating of the insulation is a big factor. There will always be some power lost in the cable which equals heat. If you have an extension cord running in free air with a decent rated insulation you can go down a size from "the code".

Face it, we have out heaters on for a couple hours every other week and many times less than an hour at full power. We can get away with a bit of heat from the cable.

Tom
 
Tegra said:
Hate to break in here...

The rating of the insulation is a big factor. There will always be some power lost in the cable which equals heat. If you have an extension cord running in free air with a decent rated insulation you can go down a size from "the code".

Face it, we have out heaters on for a couple hours every other week and many times less than an hour at full power. We can get away with a bit of heat from the cable.

Tom
Click to expand...

Heat on a free air cable is not the real problem. The real problem with under or oversized short-circuit current is that the breaker never flips. So, you are undersized and short-circuit your brewing rig somehow. The breaker doesn't flip and the frame is energised.
 
I am using 10g wire and a 25 amp breaker for each element. 5500w elements My whole system is was running on a 45 amp breaker at the time and I could run both elements and both chugger pumps. I am using a bcs 462. I also have a 60 amp spa panel in line just for gfic.
 
your wire is ideal for your application, don't worry about it, only issue would be if you upgraded to a larger set up where you wanted to run 2 elements at a time and that would need a 50 amp just to be safe. but your wire will still run fine from the pots to the control box but a bigger wire would be needed from the control box to the wall if indeed you needed to upgrade
 
podz said:
You do not want to size it too high or too low. Too low and you are in danger between the load and the breaker, i.e. using a small-wire extension cord for a 50 meter run can set the cord on fire.
Click to expand...

I get that.

podz said:
Too high and you are in danger between the breaker and the supply, i.e. you overload the circuit but the breaker doesn't flip and you get a fire or explosion on the north-bound side of your main breaker box.
Click to expand...

I am going to need a better explanation on this one.

Example: For a 20 amp circuit, there is an ideal (or optimum) size of wire? Use a smaller size cable = not optimum/bad, use a larger cable = not optimum/bad?

If that were true, you would need to factor in length. The problem is that copper wire is not a perfect conductor. If all wire could be modeled as a perfect conductor, i.e. no resistance, no capacitance, no inductance, we could use any old hunk of copper long enough.

For convenience, we will disregard capacitance and inductance on out 60 Hz power line. We are left with resistance. A given hunk of a given gauge copper wire looks like a resistor. Let us say we have a breaker and the perfect conductor is 12 gauge, the run is 100 feet. 100 feet of 12 g wire is .159 ohms. Using the next breaker, if we went 25 feet, we would should use 18 gauge. Why? To match the what we got with the 100 ft 12 g wire. 25 feet of 18 g wire is .160 ohms.

If we used 12 gauge 25 feet, we would off the given optimum by factor of 4 times. because it has 1/4 the resistance.

I am going to say, bigger wire is not a problem, unless it causes a problem with termination and/or the mechanics of the installation.
 
Ozarks_Mountian_Brew said:
10/2 is ideal for your application, don't worry about it, only issue would be if you upgraded to a larger set up where you wanted to run 2 elements at a time and that would need a 50 amp just to be safe but 10/2 wire will still run fine
Click to expand...

You sure you don't mean 10/3. 10/2 is only for 110V in the US (single hot, single neutral, ground). 10/3 is design for both legs so hot, hot, neutral, ground. 3-wire 220/240 single phase plugs exist but are mostly not longer used.
 
Onkel_Udo said:
You sure you don't mean 10/3. 10/2 is only for 110V in the US (single hot, single neutral, ground). 10/3 is design for both legs so hot, hot, neutral, ground. 3-wire 220/240 single phase plugs exist but are mostly not longer used.
Click to expand...

no 120/2 is what he would want for a power cord from the element to the plug.... think about it.... there are only 2 hots and then you would want a ground to go to the element bae or kettle.... Thats only use for 3 conductors... 10/3 has four.... I use 10/3 for my main run because I included a neutral for any 120v devices I may have wanted to run in the control panel.
The op just wants a cord to get power from the box to the element in the kettle... the ONLY thing he can use that would meet code would be the 25A rated SJ or SO cable which would be 10 or 12 guage depending on which one he went with... others will work sure but solid wire is a no no for this and like my neighbor who ran his window ac unit off a flimsy 16 guage extension cord for 3 summers before it finally got hot enough to burst into flames and burn his house down will tell you.... There are some ideas that are just plain dumb and sometimes spending the couple bucks to do it right makes sense....

8 foot of the proper cable from the home depot will run you under $25 with tax....I suggest doing this rather than 16 gauge lamp cord:smack:

I used 12guage cord that is rated by the manufacturer for 25amps and I still got a lot of flack here from people insisting I needed 10 gauge even though it only sees 18 amps tops.... There are a lot of armchair electricians here who just like to argue so I dont think you will find many threads here of this type where everyone agrees.
 
Just to be clear, what I have is the 10/2 coming from the main breaker panel to a junction box. (total run of that wire is about 6 feet) Then I have another length of 10/2 connected to the junction box, running to my heating element/SSA (total run of this wire about 3 feet maybe). I did it this way so that if I ever want to move or disconnect my element, I don't have to go right to the breaker panel. I do have a control panel but it's all run off 110v.

When I was told I should run a 50Amp breaker, my very first thought was what podz said. If something went wrong, the breaker wouldn't flip and I would have essentially built a BBQ and a fire would start. For the project I am using this for, there won't be anything else added to this breaker nor will I need a second element.
 
augiedoggy said:
no 120/2 is what he would want for a power cord from the element to the plug.... think about it.... there are only 2 hots and then you would want a ground to go to the element bae or kettle.... Thats only use for 3 conductors... 10/3 has four.... I use 10/3 for my main run because I included a neutral for any 120v devices I may have wanted to run in the control panel.
The op just wants a cord to get power from the box to the element in the kettle... the ONLY thing he can use that would meet code would be the 25A rated SJ or SO cable which would be 10 or 12 guage depending on which one he went with...
I used 12guage cord that is rated by the manufacturer for 25amps and I still got a lot of flack here from people insisting I needed 10 gauge even though it only sees 18 amps tops.... There are a lot of armchair electricians here who just like to argue so I dont think you will find many threads here of this type where everyone agrees.
Click to expand...
I get, and do not disagree with, your logic but my assumption was that this was plunging into a outlet of some sort and not directly into the spa or breaker panel. If my assumption is correct (possibly not) then 3-wire 220/240V plugs are a rare breed these days hence the 10/3 suggestion.

SO or SJ 10/2 would be perfectly acceptable for the 4500W resistance load with an only 8' run.
 
RufusBrewer said:
Your know it is not as if I recommended he use 16 gauge wire. I told him to use as large as was practical. The 16 gauge was a reference for the minimum size.

That chart says 16 gauge is 4 ohms per thousand feet 10 gauge is 1 ohm per thousand feet. On a 33 foot run, do you think the difference of .1 ohm of friction is a big deal?
Click to expand...

With all do respect,
16 g is minimum for a small patch cable inside a control panel between say an ssr and contractor thats like 6 inches, not 8 ft... if you can find me one instance where a 16g wire is except able for 8ft or anything remotely close to it for anything over 20 amps (or even 15) of ac power I would like to see it...
Your comparing apples to oranges here and making it confusing for those on topic.
 
Nonmetallic building wire like Romex is rated for how many current carrying conductors it has. 10/2 is blk,wht,bare ground. For portable cables like SO and SJ, the same conductor count is called 10/3. I don't know why but just saying so you don't end up with actual 2-wire cable.
 
Someone writes for help with a very simple issue....... something lots of people deal with every day, and well meaning but ignorant people jump in and confuse the issue with a bunch of nonsense. Electrical wiring is not rocket science. Pick the wire size that's rated for your load, and a suitable breaker. How difficult is that??

You can have too light of wire........ It takes a minimum of #12 ...... that's plenty.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO HEAVY.... from an electrical standpoint, just a practical standpoint. It would be absurd to go larger than #10, and dangerous to go below #12

H.W.
 
Ha ha... That why I love electrical! No other subject seems to cause more controversy (religion?).

Not sure but it seems electrical is the most code intensive trade and the easiest for insurance to check.

I feel sorry for anyone asking an electrical question and hoping for a sane answer. It will be either so over engineered (over priced) or dangerous.

I would recommend making friends with a local electrical guy that likes beer (all?) and getting him to help. He may actually be able to scrounge most of the parts over a bit of time.

I to enjoy the heated flash when a electrical question is thrown in the fire!

Tom
 
Owly055 said:
Someone writes for help with a very simple issue....... something lots of people deal with every day, and well meaning but ignorant people jump in and confuse the issue with a bunch of nonsense. Electrical wiring is not rocket science. Pick the wire size that's rated for your load, and a suitable breaker. How difficult is that??

You can have too light of wire........ It takes a minimum of #12 ...... that's plenty.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO HEAVY.... from an electrical standpoint, just a practical standpoint. It would be absurd to go larger than #10, and dangerous to go below #12

H.W.
Click to expand...

+1

Very true. Obviously I am one of the parties guilty of going off on the tangent as opposed to staying within the OP.
 
Onkel_Udo said:
You sure you don't mean 10/3. 10/2 is only for 110V in the US (single hot, single neutral, ground). 10/3 is design for both legs so hot, hot, neutral, ground. 3-wire 220/240 single phase plugs exist but are mostly not longer used.
Click to expand...

depends on the wiring of the house, 10/2 comes with a copper ground thats used as both ground and neutral, 10/3 has a extra isolated ground. older homes only need 10/2 there is no isolated ground in the fuse box
 
augiedoggy said:
unless you live in a commercial building mst US residential homes end up with 240v (or close to) and a 4500watt element only draws about 18 amps in the real world... at least the three different ones I have do... 5500w elements draw between 22-23amp in most cases. (the elements are always slightly overrated I've found.)

I now run a 4500w element along with an 1800w rims element at the same time and still have plenty of amps to run 2 of my 24v dc pumps and my control panel all off the same circuit.... 30a can work just fine and depending on the cable run it can be very costly and alot more work fishing 6awg wire vs a run of 10/3

I do have 2 4500w elements in my brew setup but unless someone is spending 9 hours brewing back to back batches there is no need to ever heat the bk and HLT at the same time.

and in most cases 16 gauge wire is NOT rated for 22amps... even 12gauge romex is only rated for 20amps... 16 is more like 10 amps if I remember right. 14 is good for 15 and used in the walls of most homes. inside your box twisted strand wire is rated for more amps but I would still not use 16awg for a 22 amp draw... most use 12 gauge for element wiring.
Click to expand...

That is mostly because of Vdrop. Both in the wire and the element itself. The difference between 240V and 235V is roughly a 4% drop in power draw/heating power for the element and with a big load on the breaker, it is perfectly realistic to think you might have a 5v sag on a 240v circuit with something like a 20A load, which is enough to drop you from 4500w to 4300w.
 
Ozarks_Mountian_Brew said:
depends on the wiring of the house, 10/2 comes with a copper ground thats used as both ground and neutral, 10/3 has a extra isolated ground. older homes only need 10/2 there is no isolated ground in the fuse box
Click to expand...

That is completely wrong.............. You NEVER use the ground for a neutral.........


H.W.
 
Bobby_M said:
Nonmetallic building wire like Romex is rated for how many current carrying conductors it has. 10/2 is blk,wht,bare ground. For portable cables like SO and SJ, the same conductor count is called 10/3. I don't know why but just saying so you don't end up with actual 2-wire cable.
Click to expand...

Your completely right... I wasnt aware of that.
 
Owly055 said:
That is completely wrong.............. You NEVER use the ground for a neutral.........


H.W.
Click to expand...

I understand what your saying and thats why they changed the codes....but if you trace back any 240 wiring in an oder home like mine 50 years old, the fuse box does not have a separate ground, all grounds are hooked to the common bus so using 10/3 wire you would need to start a separate ground to earth bus and run that from the fuse box to a ground rod at least 4 feet or more or else your just wasting money
 
azazel1024 said:
That is mostly because of Vdrop. Both in the wire and the element itself. The difference between 240V and 235V is roughly a 4% drop in power draw/heating power for the element and with a big load on the breaker, it is perfectly realistic to think you might have a 5v sag on a 240v circuit with something like a 20A load, which is enough to drop you from 4500w to 4300w.
Click to expand...
yes very true I am aware of that... and some building are wired to only produce 208v but those are usually commercial buildings in the US...
 
Ozarks_Mountian_Brew said:
I understand what your saying and thats why they changed the codes....but if you trace back any 240 wiring in an oder home like mine 50 years old, the fuse box does not have a separate ground, all grounds are hooked to the common bus so using 10/3 wire you would need to start a separate ground to earth bus and run that from the fuse box to a ground rod at least 4 feet or more or else your just wasting money
Click to expand...

Yes, all grounds ARE hooked to the neutral bus bar, in the main breaker. That is the proper way to do it.

A ground wire is not connected to directly to the neutral anywhere. That would be dangerous as hell. The ground and neutral bus bars are connected in the main panel however, as they need to be.

Many very old homes have NO ground wire and no ground bus bar. Generally about late 1950's to mid 1960's homes had undersized grounds (generally 2-4AWG smaller than the conductors) and then in the mid/late 1960's code changes and the ground had to be the same size as the conductors.

The grounds should not be terminated at the neutral bar, they should be terminated at a ground bus bar, which is bonded to the neutral bus bar. The ground bus bar should then also be connected to an earthed rod or rods (minimum of 4ft apart if multiple) in size/depth such to have a maximum of 20ohms (maybe it is 25) of resistance to ground.

You would not use 10/3 wire, you'd use 10AWG single conductor wire to connect to the ground rods.

You never, ever, ever want to connect the neutral and ground anywhere other than in the main panel. If you do that and a neutral and hot wire are improperly reversed on the circuit and you'll A) trip the breaker and/or B) electrocute yourself if you touch the chasis of anything grounded.

In several dozen homes and buildings I've done electrical work in, I think I'd have to at a minimum pull off my socks to count the number of times I've seen an outlet or switch with neutral and hot reversed.
 
azazel1024 said:
Yes, all grounds ARE hooked to the neutral bus bar, in the main breaker. That is the proper way to do it.

A ground wire is not connected to directly to the neutral anywhere. That would be dangerous as hell. The ground and neutral bus bars are connected in the main panel however, as they need to be.

Many very old homes have NO ground wire and no ground bus bar. Generally about late 1950's to mid 1960's homes had undersized grounds (generally 2-4AWG smaller than the conductors) and then in the mid/late 1960's code changes and the ground had to be the same size as the conductors.

The grounds should not be terminated at the neutral bar, they should be terminated at a ground bus bar, which is bonded to the neutral bus bar. The ground bus bar should then also be connected to an earthed rod or rods (minimum of 4ft apart if multiple) in size/depth such to have a maximum of 20ohms (maybe it is 25) of resistance to ground.

You would not use 10/3 wire, you'd use 10AWG single conductor wire to connect to the ground rods.

You never, ever, ever want to connect the neutral and ground anywhere other than in the main panel. If you do that and a neutral and hot wire are improperly reversed on the circuit and you'll A) trip the breaker and/or B) electrocute yourself if you touch the chasis of anything grounded.

In several dozen homes and buildings I've done electrical work in, I think I'd have to at a minimum pull off my socks to count the number of times I've seen an outlet or switch with neutral and hot reversed.
Click to expand...

Most folks do not understand electricity, or wiring, either AC or DC, and discount the importance of ground (DC), or neutral (AC), as somehow not carrying the same load as the positive (DC), or Hot AC lead. They in fact carry exactly the same current load...... and are the same gauge for this reason. The ground wire on the other hand is not a load carrying wire, and often is lighter. People get away with a lot of "sins" with wiring, but there really is only one safe way to do it.


H.W.
 
azazel1024 said:
In several dozen homes and buildings I've done electrical work in, I think I'd have to at a minimum pull off my socks to count the number of times I've seen an outlet or switch with neutral and hot reversed.
Click to expand...

Warning, Thread degradation even further

Honestly, I have never owned a home where less than 10% of the outlets had it reversed when I purchased it. Granted, my first home had 6 outlets in its 1100 sq feet (but one gas nipple per room) and a whopping 4 circuit fuse box.

FYI, not every instance has appeared to be homeowner installed either. there are certain tell-tales of the local Union guys doing work (practices not skilled homeowner would use because) and two of my four outlets that were reversed in my current house had every indication a "Pro" installed them.
 
azazel1024 said:
Yes, all grounds ARE hooked to the neutral bus bar, in the main breaker. That is the proper way to do it.

A ground wire is not connected to directly to the neutral anywhere. That would be dangerous as hell. The ground and neutral bus bars are connected in the main panel however, as they need to be.

Many very old homes have NO ground wire and no ground bus bar. Generally about late 1950's to mid 1960's homes had undersized grounds (generally 2-4AWG smaller than the conductors) and then in the mid/late 1960's code changes and the ground had to be the same size as the conductors.

The grounds should not be terminated at the neutral bar, they should be terminated at a ground bus bar, which is bonded to the neutral bus bar. The ground bus bar should then also be connected to an earthed rod or rods (minimum of 4ft apart if multiple) in size/depth such to have a maximum of 20ohms (maybe it is 25) of resistance to ground.

You would not use 10/3 wire, you'd use 10AWG single conductor wire to connect to the ground rods.

You never, ever, ever want to connect the neutral and ground anywhere other than in the main panel. If you do that and a neutral and hot wire are improperly reversed on the circuit and you'll A) trip the breaker and/or B) electrocute yourself if you touch the chasis of anything grounded.

In several dozen homes and buildings I've done electrical work in, I think I'd have to at a minimum pull off my socks to count the number of times I've seen an outlet or switch with neutral and hot reversed.
Click to expand...

without going into specific detail, thats exactly what I was saying, you just explained it in or detail, thanks
 
Yup, almost all of the reversed work I have seen looked to have been done by the original electrical contractor. Or, more likely than not, their under paid and undertrained "apprentice(s)".

I have seen a few homeowner hackjobs that have scared the bejesus out of me where I refused to turn the breaker back on until I had remediated the problem.

Most of the general shoddy work has been original construction for sure. Including a hotwater heater which didn't have the ground properly connected (by which I mean WAS NOT). You want to know how I found out??? It involved a tiny leak in jacket that ran over an element. Yeah, it hurt like a son-of-a-b.

Just took touching the body of the water heater in my barefeet, concrete was moist enough to ground me.
 
Wow this thread got out of hand quick. Not one Licensed Electrician has chimed in?

A lot of mis-information here. Can I make a recommendation for the OP. Just follow Kal's setup advice regarding the wiring that he uses because he followed code on just about everything and documented it. He used 10/3 for the wiring going from his outlets on his control panel to the elements. He is using 5500w elements, and has never had any issues at all.
He also uses 10GA singular wireing for the wires going from his Bus Bars to the Outlets for his Elements inside the panel.

He uses 14ga for everything else.

Are they overkill? Maybe... But has he had any issues with arcing or wires melting, or breakers tripping? No... SOOOOOOO

Forget the Bullsh*t (sorry but a lot of the comments in this thread are) and just do that... You will be just fine.

And final piece of advice... If you don't feel confident in this, contract an electrician to help you or do it for you.
 

Similar threads

B
eBIAB PID Controller Wiring Diagram - Feedback Requested
Replies
14
Views
1K
beerisambrosia
B
L
Can I wire an ev charger to existing electric brewery?
Replies
25
Views
2K
bruce_the_loon
bruce_the_loon
S
New to Electric brewing
Replies
14
Views
1K
Exception13
Exception13
P
(2) 240V (HLT+BK) and (1)120V (RIMS) element panel - wiring diagram
Replies
7
Views
1K
Bobby_M
Bobby_M
Wogman75
Electric Brew Panel Troubleshooting
Replies
29
Views
2K
Geezer-Glide
G
Yakima 300

Latest posts

Back
Top