Look at my electrical box and tell me whats up?

[headiez247]

Moving into this new place. I'd like to hire a electrician to take a look but maybe you guys can tell me what the deal is going to be.

Its a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom place. Going to be running 1400 Watts plus fans and A/C.

Looks like a weird/badly labelled (?) setup. Is it possible for an electrician to just add more power power to the house without doing any additional wiring? If additional wiring is necessary, how much will it cost? This box is on the outside of the unit, and the room I'm doing this in is directly above it.

[Unclenugs]

you need to find out which circuit you'll be using. you can do this by flipping the breakers fo see where the power goes out, once you find out which circuit(s) you'll be using, you'll know if you can handle 2000+ watts. if you can split up that wattage between two of those circuits, you should be fine.

[Don Piano]

There are no open locations to add more circuits. You will need a sub-panel.
You can do this a few different ways. One would be to take the 15 and 20 out on the left, and put them in a new panel and wire it up. You will have to take power from where the 15 and 20 originally got their power and split them. Send one side of the splits to the new box's 15 and 20, and put the other side of the splits into a 40amp breaker that you put in where there originally were the 15 and 20. Then you have to run the wires that originally came out of the 15 and 20 breakers to the new box, and you have to run some 4ga cable to where you want to grow and put another subpanel there with multiple breakers, for multiple outlets, at multiple voltages (these can be purchased prebuilt)

Or you can simply tap into the main power (after the meter, before the box, lets not be a dummy) and run new cable to the grow area where you can put a subpanel in. They sell these taps that are fully insulated and safe for connecting to live power. Discount-hydro.com sells them.

Example of scenerio 1

[Don Piano]

You can not call an electrician for this type of work. It must be done by someone who knows their shit that you trust to know of the grow, or you will have to balls up and give it a go. If you don't understand it, take the front of the box off, have a look, and go to the internet and search and search and search, and have another look, and read and read and read, and have another look, and repeat until you do understand whats going on in there. search "DIY home electrical wiring". It is not difficult. But the 4ga wire will cost ya.

[headiez247]

Ok so I moved a light from plug to plug to figure out how its wired.

The grow room has 4 wall plugs in it, one on each wall. Three of them go to a 20amp circuit which also is shared with my bedroom downstairs. There will be nothing plugged in my bedroom except the fan/light thing on the ceiling and my phone/laptop charger.

The last wall plug in the grow room is a 15amp circuit which is shared with another bedroom that will have a 32 inch LCD monitor w/ cable, and an alarm clock/phone charger.

I'm hoping/wondering if I can pull it off using the 35amps.

From what I've read, its 9.2amps for a 1000k.

I want to do TWO 1ks (a MH and a HPS)

My optimal setup is below (but looks like without doing major work, i couldn't have the 400w):





I calculate:
1k: 9.5 (to be safe) amps
1k: 9.5
AC: 9 (? Prob gonna be a 8k btu)
600cfm + 2x 175 CFM fans: 7 (?)
TOTAL: 35

So that puts me right at 35 with no additional for the few tiny things that would be attached in the 2 bedrooms... I'm hoping I'm off on the fan and AC power draw.



I'll admit I don't feel comfortable about the DIY wiring because I don't know much about it and don't have the time to read/research it because I have to do the move in the next two days. Unless I took pictures of the whole thing and was assured I knew what I was doing would I ever fuck with this stuff.

The other thing is the act of doing work on the electrical would look sketchy if the manager or any other residents walked by. I suppose if it was an electrician it would look more legit (though if the manager came by he would probably ask whats up/why I didn't ask him about it). If it would not take long and wouldn't cost more then $200 I'm down for it but I don't think I can be the one doing the work.

Any advice/help would be appreciated. Have to figure this out ASAP.

[headiez247]

Looking at the fan I'm about to get it says:

6" - VTX600 449CFM 0.8 AMPs

So it looks like I was way over estimating how much power the fans take

[Don Piano]

Well if your Grow room is less than 100sq ft (sure it is) you could use a 5000btu AC and draw only 4.8amps with that. The fans were over estimated I see.

What are the dimensions, and do you have the lights already?

Did not realize you were renting. DONT SCREW WITH THE POWER.
Actually a grow of this size is a scarry thing in a rental, the manager can pop by and need to get to certain areas. Granted they have to give you notice, but you still have to tear down, and get rid of big stinky females mid flower.

You can not put the lights together on 1 circuit, nor a light on the same circuit as an AC unit. Just too small of circuits. There are still options. Just answer my Q's up there.

[headiez247]

Hey.

Ya its a townhouse. Each "building" on the property (theres about 10 of them) has 2 townhouses. This room is not on the common wall though. There are other buildings like 8 feet away though.

The room itself is 14x10x8 but we were going to do 10x7 for the enclosure (thinking of using astrofoil to make) and then within that space there will be a astrofoil wall seperating the veg and bloom rooms.

So 10x7 is the grow space.

Already have both lights. Sun System 1000 air cooled.

Shoot me back with any more questions, the help is appreciated.

[Don Piano]

With the circuits you have available to use, it will be hard to do all the gear in that one room safely. An AC unit needs a dedicated 15 amp circuit (even a small one needs it for safety). 1 1000watt light with a few SMALL accessories (not exceeding 12 amps total with the light) would be ok on a 15, and MAYBE squeeze the AC on the 20amp circuit with the other light (if you use a very small very efficient 5000btu unit with an EER rating of 10.5 or higher)

You still will be cutting it close all the way around, but it is "do-able"

[headiez247]

175CFM #1: .95 amps
175CFM #2: .95 amps
449CFM: .8 amps
1k: 9.5 amps
1k: 9.5 amps
A/C 5k: 5 amps
Alarm, etc: 2amps

Total: 28.7 amps
Spread between a 20amp and a 15amp circuit.

So you think thats safe? Leaves an extra 7amps?

How would you split it between the two circuits?

[Don Piano]

I understand that there are an extra almost 7 amps left, but you never want to max the circuit. No more than 75%. 26.25 would be max you should use between those circuits. 11.25amp draw on the 15amp circuit, and 15amp draw on the 20amp circuit.

You can put 1 light with one 175cfm fan on the 15 amp circuit.
You can put one light and the AC on the 20amp circuit.
You don't have enough power to safely run anything more that you need to use. I can not stress this enough, you need some 600watt lights, or you cant use AC. one or the other. maybe I am just too tired to think right now, But it all comes down to safety.



What kind of alarm do you need to use?

[headiez247]

I 100% agree about safety and thats why I want to do it right and not have to worry about melting down.


For the "alarm, etc 2amp" I was just accounting for the few small things that would be plugged in the adjacent rooms that share the same circuit. So a tiny alarm clock, a cell phone charger, a 32inch lcd tv, thats about it.

Frustrating because I'm so close to making it. Would getting a smaller a/c still work for the plants and have enough of a decrease in energy to make it possible?

I'm just trying to figure out how to get more power or less usage. There's really no way to get power from the kitchen or the living room (both downstairs) up to the grow room without doing some serious drilling through the ceiling or something

[Don Piano]

I had that issue man. I know the feeling. I had no where near the power consumption evaluation that you presented though.

You can do it. Look at my construction thread and see what I had to do to get power into my room.

Get good with the drywall and get matching paint. You can run power from another circuit (an outlet in the livingroom) and put in an extra outlet in the grow box for small accessories.

I was wondering about that alarm. Trying to figure out what kind of alarm you could possibly need. I see now.
If you run a new outlet, you can power all the small stuff on that (fans and small extra shit)

[headiez247]

So good news.. In the downstairs bathroom there is a random panel in the ceiling. I took this pannel out and low and behold, the other end goes RIGHT into the closet of the grow room.

In this bathroom, there is a 20amp circuit which is shared with the kitchen.

So I'll just run an extension cord up into it and the AC will run off it along with one of the fans I guess.


We will also need a A/C downstairs in the living room (hot as hell here) but I figure since the living room has its own 20amp and we won't be tapping into it, it should be ok.

[Don Piano]

Sounds nice. Lucky guy. Do you have access to your bathroom fan vent duct? maybe you can use that for the light cooling. Would be a great place to vent if you get a nice powerful fan.
Fans
Some nice cheap inlines here.