240 volt outlet quote

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JVD_X

JVD_X

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Hi folks,

I just got a quote on TWO 240volt 30 amp outlets for my unfinished basement... for $539 US. I have no idea if this is a a good quote...

For about $600 they will include a GFCI breaker into each outlet.

Anybody know if this seems like a good price?
 
Hell, for that price I'd run the wire myself and buy myself something nice for the brewery like a sweet boil kettle or a kegerator. Then again, my dad was an electrician and I grew up helping him wire houses.

I guess it depends on a few key things. How far away from the breaker you are looking to go and if you are hiding the wires in the wall how you want the finished product to look. Since your basement is unfinished it should be a whole lot easier to work with because I'm assuming you have exposed floor joists and you should be able to easily access the breaker and run your lines.

I don't know what the going rate would be for a pro, but I would wire it myself (something else I also inherited from my dad).

How are you going to deal with the moisture from the boil?
 
Well, I can say this... a few years ago, when I was in construction management, we paid $55 each for 240V 30 Amp circuits, BUT...

That price was part of a whole single family home contract for an electrician, so it's not a fair comparison. I would get a couple more quotes. The price really depends on your individual situation... how many feet of wire needs to be run, how much work is involved with getting the wire to the basement, etc. Also, if you have standard 200 amp service, you need to make sure it can handle the additional amperage.
 
Did you ask him how much time it would take. Depending on the distance, you'll have at least $50 in part, more if the distance to the panel is long.
 
It depends on where the power panel is and what they have to do to run the wire. When I got my heatpump installed, it cost about $700 to run a 220 volt / 20 amp circuit. That was up the wall, through the attic and down the wall on the outside. It included the GFI breaker, a power box, cutout and connecting the heatpump.

The 20 amp requirement for a 2-ton unit freaked the installer. He was used to a 30 amp requirement.
 
The panel is about 15 feet from my "brew room" on the same unfinished wall.

They charge $65 just to show up and they are quoting 3 hours of work.

I have plenty of electrical skills, I can build circuit boards, change out plugs, repair switches, but something about screwing around in my breaker box freaks me out.

As far as moisture... I have a small window right near the potential brewing setup that I am equipping with a hood vent. However, that is a project for another day. For now I am just putting a box fan in the window.
 
Jaybird said:
Heck bro you could probably buy me a plane ticked to and from your house for that price.
JJ
Ya I would do it for free
Click to expand...

That's why I am asking! I am also concerned about county codes so that's on the to-do list tomorrow. I have permission from the wife to turn my 15x15 foot brewing area into a full bar and brewing area. Again... a project for later but it will still need to be approved by the county.
 
JVD_X said:
The panel is about 15 feet from my "brew room" on the same unfinished wall.

They charge $65 just to show up and they are quoting 3 hours of work..
Click to expand...

After having wired my brewhaus, I can tell you it should not take a professional more than an hour to pop in a 30 AMP breaker, and run some wire to a dryer outlet 15 feet away in an unfinished wall.

I'll be doing just that myself here pretty soon when my 18 gallon electric HLT arrives. I'll probably do it this weekend and I bet I get it done in under an hour, but I only have to run 13 feet. :D
 
I have expierience with this type of work and can tell you off the bat that you can start with material costs. The plugs are around $10.00 a piece plus boxes so figure $30.00, plus wire which 10/2 or 3 if you need a neutral is not cheap about $80.00 for a 250 foot roll. Then there are the breakers and they can range probably middle of the road $40.00 for 2-pole gfci breakers. So the grand total for material would be $190.00 and you would have spare wire left or you could bring down the cost by buying it per foot at your local lowes. One thing to keep in mind is they are or should be buying a permit which is minumum $50.00 around here (wa.) and paying sales tax too. My advice? Do some research and do it yourself-save $300, or if piece of mind is important to you just pay it, you will have "documentation" in the form of the inspection the electrical contractor pulled and a reciept. But that job is very easy sounding on the other hand. good luck
 
I don’t know about VA but CA is a disclosure state. You don’t HAVE to get a permit for such work they want you to but you dont HAVE to you just have to disclose the work if and when you sell the house. I would do it myself but that’s just me (I remodeled my entire house with out a permit) you can buy your wire by the foot and slap that puppy together in about an hour for about 100 bucks. If your nervous about the panel (and you should be if you don’t have any experience in one) just have a buddy come do it. Or go buy a book. heck for that matter for free you can have your local electric company pull your meter just tell them your doing an annual inspection and you want to tighten everything in your box. Your power will be out for an hour. Have everything done except the sub work and your good to go.
Cheers
JJ
 
Jaybird said:
Heck bro you could probably buy me a plane ticked to and from your house for that price.
JJ
Ya I would do it for free
Click to expand...

Seriously, I would to... for maybe a few beers. Do it yourself, if your really afraid of the panel, turn off the main and wire it up.
 
Just did this same thing last night - 2 x 30amp circuits. About 15' apart and from the main panel.

Took about 30 min to do and drill the holes for the wire. The damn outlets were costly though! I used the locking L5-30 @ about $17 each.

You need to find an electrician that likes beer :)
 
lrr81765 said:
Just did this same thing last night - 2 x 30amp circuits. About 15' apart and from the main panel.

Took about 30 min to do and drill the holes for the wire. The damn outlets were costly though! I used the locking L5-30 @ about $17 each.

You need to find an electrician that MAKES beer :)
Click to expand...

There fixed it! :)

Check your local HB club for any electrician members ;) Trade a couple brew kits or some supplies!
 
well I have a fairly new 'stanleys electric' book I bought from loses I used to
Configure my home theater and I do believe that there is a section ok box work so I think I will start there...
 
I have a few questions...
What is the make and model of the main panel?
Are there any obstructions?
Is there going to be one or two runs to feed the receptacles?

What wiring method are they going to use?
There are a few exceptable ways to do this.

You could run a pipe along the wall and use THHN (easiest and probaly cheapest if you don't mind pipes running along your wall)

You could run a pipe up and along the joists and down to the receptacles and use THHN

You could run NM-B up into the joists from the main panel then stub down from the joists to the receptacle with EMT just make sure you use a bushing or EMT-NM connector.


Either way any of the above methods will take more then 30 minutes...lol

I would give at least 2 hours for a good job......

I would NEVER tell somebody I would do it free or cheap without seeing it first
there are panels out there that have breakers that are discontinued and you will pay out of the nose for them if you can even find them...hell you could walk into a nob and tube nightmare....:mug:
 
My goto electrician charges a $40.00 flat fee for a basic outlet plus cost for the wire. I can't imagine a 240 would be any more difficult.
 
JVD_X said:
The panel is about 15 feet from my "brew room" on the same unfinished wall.

They charge $65 just to show up and they are quoting 3 hours of work.

I have plenty of electrical skills, I can build circuit boards, change out plugs, repair switches, but something about screwing around in my breaker box freaks me out.

As far as moisture... I have a small window right near the potential brewing setup that I am equipping with a hood vent. However, that is a project for another day. For now I am just putting a box fan in the window.
Click to expand...


I am toying with the same idea (240V) as winter comes in. I am very handy and can do almost anything around the house and don't like paying for someone else to do it. Right now I am in the process of redoing my basement. I have never done much electrical work except changing switches and sockets like you said, I bought a book from Home Depot, and read most of it, and I was fully comfortable in adding an entire new 20A circuit breaker and line out of the main panel. It took me 10 minutes to pop in a new breaker and I had the power back on. You can do it. Here's the book that helped me. I swear this isn't a pitch:)

51PQatcyGLL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_AA219_PIsitb-sticker-dp-arrow,TopRight,-24,-23_SH20_OU01_.jpg


Amazon.com: Ultimate Guide to Wiring: Complete Projects for the Home (Ultimate Guide): Editors of Creative Homeowner: Books
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The house is new... we had it built last year.

My main panel is gray and rectangular :) I plan on using wire made of metal - probably wrapped in some kind of plastic/rubber material so as to avoid shock... joking!

In all seriousness, I am the type of guy that likes to design and design and design until I get exactly what I want - which is usually way over engineered. When I had the house built I had them double the number of sockets and drops for music, internet, cable, etc. I had them run fiber optic throughout the house as well. I did the home theater wiring myself because i was very particular about the wire.

I have to look at the panel to give you some of the answers but I am out of town right now... on a project until xmas. When I make it home I can get that info.

Interestingly, I just found some source material that says electric ovens usually are serviced by 50 amps. At some point I would like to be able to put in an oven. Maybe I should use dual 50 amp plugs instead. I wonder if I have that much free amps left in the box, probably not.
 
As someone already mentioned, once you start upping your amperage draw (ala adding 30a service for HLT and such as well as an oven) you start incurring more costs. You may end up needing to add a second breaker box or upping your service at the very least.

You might be better served to figure out what you want for the long run and put your money toward that goal. But, if you just want to run two 30a lines that is easy.
 
wihophead said:
I have a few questions...
What is the make and model of the main panel?
Are there any obstructions?
Is there going to be one or two runs to feed the receptacles?

What wiring method are they going to use?
There are a few exceptable ways to do this.

You could run a pipe along the wall and use THHN (easiest and probaly cheapest if you don't mind pipes running along your wall)

You could run a pipe up and along the joists and down to the receptacles and use THHN

You could run NM-B up into the joists from the main panel then stub down from the joists to the receptacle with EMT just make sure you use a bushing or EMT-NM connector.


Either way any of the above methods will take more then 30 minutes...lol

I would give at least 2 hours for a good job......

I would NEVER tell somebody I would do it free or cheap without seeing it first
there are panels out there that have breakers that are discontinued and you will pay out of the nose for them if you can even find them...hell you could walk into a nob and tube nightmare....:mug:
Click to expand...


Well, he did say that his house was only a year old, so no worries about knob-and-tube wiring or finding an old Federal Pacific firebox panel. I would agree, though, that to do the job well (meaning to code, and a good professional job) should be about two hours. Could you do it yourself cheaper? Sure. Just make sure you follow codes and are safe when you work.
 
I've been trying to find code for my area... I found the virgina electrical code but -my god- I can't make heads or tails of it.
 
what i would do is talk to an electrian. Tell him that you will pull the wire & he can do the final hook up if you dont feel confortable. also goto holmesonholmes.com....great site


I honestly think it easy. i thought it was hard till my electrition showed me.....you hook white & bear to the neurtral bar....black/red to break..in panel pop the sucker in...you got power
 
The VA code follows the international code, at least it does for plumbing and gas...
Since you're addinf a breaker, you need to pull a permit and have it inspected. You can pull a homowner's permit yourself if you think you can do it yourself. If you do, make sure you know what you're doing, or the inspector will fail you.
 
If your not sure about the breaker box don't mess with it. However I would sugest doing a little research and hitting home depot then runing all the wiring and finding an electrician to come down and set up the breaker and connect the wires. Shouldn't take em more than 15min.
 
OK - my panel type is 'Squared D' and also all my breakers.

Something interesting to me [that I never noticed before] is that the sum of all the breakers far exceeds to the 200 AMP main service breaker. I guess technically it would be fairly easy to blow the breaker by turning on a ton of devices on a lot of different feeds. How do you know when to stop adding AMPS to the box?

How do I really know if I need to upgrade my service?
 
JVD_X said:
Hi folks,

I just got a quote on TWO 240volt 30 amp outlets for my unfinished basement... for $539 US. I have no idea if this is a a good quote...

For about $600 they will include a GFCI breaker into each outlet.

Anybody know if this seems like a good price?
Click to expand...

JVD_X said:
For adding two 50 amp breakers?
Click to expand...

Um, why are you putting 50 amp breakers on a circuit that is only rated for 30??? Not only is that a big time no-no code-wise, it's not very wise.
 
NHRACER said:
You can most certainly connect a 30 amp load to a 50 amp breaker/circuit.
Click to expand...

You can connect the LOAD, but everything in the circuit (wiring, receptacle rating) must be rated for the overload protection to which it is attatched. Since he is using 30 amp receptacles (and probably ten gauge wire), he cannot use more than a 30 amp breaker. To do so is against code and asking for a fire.
 
I'm a little late here, but where is the OP located? Perhaps a close by brewer could help.

As mentioned, if the ouitlet is 30 amp then size the breaker at 30 amp. Make the wire 10 guage for 30 amp or go bigger if you are going to do 50 amp soon. With copper prices the way they were, don't go that overboard if you don't think you'll need it soon.
 

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