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Electrical Wiring

New wiring

16 years ago

I have a detached garage and have run UF 12/2 wiring to it. My only plan at this time is to provide an outlet for tools and one lighting fixture. I want a switch from inside the house to activate the garage wiring. I ran the wiring from a new circuit in the panel through the basement, up into the laundry room, where it is spliced to the garage and also down to the switch. The outdoor splice then runs into the garage and down to the outlet. My tester says there is no power at the breaker. Could I have bought a faulty breaker? Even so, do I have the switch wired correctly? I thought it was so simple, but it isn't.

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Comments (5)

Ron Natalie
16 years ago
Disconnect the wire at the braker and test the power DIRECTLY at the breaker if you have not done so.

Check to make sure the breaker is seated properly on the panel. Also you did you try operating the breaker? Square D breakers come pre-tripped from the factory (must be some step in their QA procedure). You need to turn the handle fully off and then back on to reset it.
shadetree_programmer
16 years ago
Yes, this means that your garbage disposal is on the same circuit as the lights. In new kitchen constructions, usually every appliance is on it's own circuit including disposal. It's a bit overkill and requires lots of breakers but would prevent the type of scenario you're seeing.

In addition, I always like to put lights-only on a circuit so that I don't see any dimming when receptacles are used.

I.E. when I power up my HD TV, the lights always dim in the living room. It stink but this is existing wiring and not worth the hassle or re-wiring...

Shade
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Be a shame to rewire a house and have non compliant boxes. If you do a quick check of the table 310.16A in the NEC you will find that the common size metal boxes in old houses don't have enough room per current code requirements (typically they are 2" X 3" X 1Â½" or 2"). Box fill calcs have changed over the years for different reasons, the big ones being the addition of a ground wire and the 2 wire deduction for each yoke (the strap that holds the device to the box.) In your example of a BX clamp in the box (1 wire count), the 2 wires in the armored cable (2 wire counts), the 3 wires in the NM-B cable (3 wire counts-have to count the first ground wire), and finally the 2 counts for a receptacle or switch......for a total fill of 8. Your device box will need to be 3Â½" deep if using #14 wire. I think you'll find most device boxes from this era to be from 1Â½ to 2Â½ inches deep - too small for extending the run, and often too small for even a receptacle per current codes. If you're wiring old houses you'd best learn how to put in new boxes without a lot of damage. To do a remodel job to code, changing out old boxes is a fact of life.
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I don't know what good the third wire would be but if it floats your boat. Somethings I'd consider however is making sure all the switch boxes have neutrals in the rewiring which they might not have orginally. Fancier home automation devices and dimmers that can deal with non-resistive loads (LED's, CF, and the like) will likely require that. While there were some older HA systems that used an extra wire (the purple wire), they're pretty much fallen by the way side in favor of either the carrier line (X.10, Insteon) or RF (ZWave, Zigbee) systems. 12-3 would be over kill for smoke's. 14 would have had ampacity to spare.
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bigbird_1
16 years ago
Are you using the tester properly? The reason I ask is you keep using the word "splice". The pro term is "junctioned". Tell us how you used the tester to determine that there is no power at the breaker. The cable must not be "spliced" into 2 separate directions in the laundry room. The cable won't be switched if you run one path out to the garage and the other to the switch. You need to run the cable directly to the switch and from there out to the garage. No splicing or junction boxes are necessary if I understand your intention correctly.
beacher003
16 years ago
Also, are you using a 15 amp or 20 amp breaker on the 12-2? If you're using a 20a then you need a 20a rated switch.
liatos
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for all the advice. For now, I got rid of the switch. I did use a 20 amp breaker and no, previously it wasn't seated properly. But, I'm happy to say that now there is power in the garage. I learned a lot.

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