Need to bounce some things off of more experienced people

oneeye15

oneeye15

Member
Ok, im setting up my grow room which looks like its going to be 8 feet long 5 feet across and 8 feet deep. My questions are about electric, the box says amps 100, volts 120/240. Now would it be able to support 2 600watt ballasts that are HPS & MH. along with Fans and a dual hose portable ac unit? If anyone if willling to talk to me about all the things that go into a grow room id really appreciate it.
kiss-ass
 
EmptyWords

EmptyWords

Active Member
the breaker box says 100 amps? thats not what you need to look for, you need to see how many amps the breaker is for the room you are growing in, more than likely its 15 amps. with 15 amps you will be over doing it running 2 600's and a portable ac im sure. add up all your amps for all you equipment and if its under 15 amps then you are good "that is if the grow area is 15 amps" if you need more power then you will have to install a bigger breaker and run bigger wire which can be a bitch to do sometimes and you should know what you are doing so that you dont create a fire hazard. if you need more power then my suggestion is to get an electrician to do the electrical work.
 
oneeye15

oneeye15

Member
ok, its in the basement so i have access to multiple rooms electrical supply. could i just simply plug 1 light into a different breaker and another light into another breaker?
 
khm916

khm916

Active Member
Yes as long as they are on different breakers and you aren't exceeding the amperage on the given breaker you should be fine.
 
EmptyWords

EmptyWords

Active Member
that would be just fine, run on mulitiple breakers thats what i do. i have a nice 30 amp at my disposal also.
 
oneeye15

oneeye15

Member
ok ive done some digging is anyone familiar with a tandem breaker? If my understanding is correct it takes one 15 amp breaker and makes 2 15 amp breakers. is this right? If so could i have a electrician come and instal one of these and make an outlet for it?
 
oneeye15

oneeye15

Member
there are no more spaces left in the box. If a electrician did that would he have to rewire everything. what would something like that cost?
 
EmptyWords

EmptyWords

Active Member
i cant really say, i have never hired one i do all my own work. and i dont know your exact situation. all you can do is cal around and see what they say.
 
dbkick

dbkick

Well-Known Member
I just had a guy come in and put a 80 amp subpanel in , it involved running some heavy gauge wiring and buidling a board with all your outlets on it, he made one 240 for the light, one 20 amp 120 volt for the ac and two 4 outlet 20 amps to plug in things like water pumps, theres a timer for the light built into the board, lemme see if I got a picture of it...yeah there it is. I spent a few more bucks and had him put in a 240 outlet and a dryer cord from the board so it can easily be removed and still be a useable 240 volt outlet there, his original plans just called for wiring the board in hard and I didn't like that. before I had this work done I was running extension cords from other outlets and thats not a good idea, I found the cord I run the ac on was burnt at the plug. This is what prompted me to spend about 6 bills running the heavy gauge wire and installing the board. good luck
 

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EmptyWords

EmptyWords

Active Member
dbkick said:
I just had a guy come in and put a 80 amp subpanel in , it involved running some heavy gauge wiring and buidling a board with all your outlets on it, he made one 240 for the light, one 20 amp 120 volt for the ac and two 4 outlet 20 amps to plug in things like water pumps, theres a timer for the light built into the board, lemme see if I got a picture of it...yeah there it is. I spent a few more bucks and had him put in a 240 outlet and a dryer cord from the board so it can easily be removed and still be a useable 240 volt outlet there, his original plans just called for wiring the board in hard and I didn't like that. before I had this work done I was running extension cords from other outlets and thats not a good idea, I found the cord I run the ac on was burnt at the plug. This is what prompted me to spend about 6 bills running the heavy gauge wire and installing the board. good luck
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very nice, i plan on doing the same thing.
 
G

gobbly

Well-Known Member
yes, that is how you make a 30 amp circuit, it will be two 15 amp's together, it will take up two slots in your box. It really isn't an issue or just whether it will use it or not, it's a question of what ALL you have running off it. Basically you want a small window of error, so for 30 amps you don't want to pull out more than ~24 amps. Take all the devices you run through that circuit, and either calculate it's amperage, or better yet use a kill-a-watt meter and find out for sure. Add it all up :) It's pretty straight forward, you have so many amps avail, you gotta make sure that everything on at once won't exceed this (and usually we only use 80% of a circuit, leaving a 20% margin).
 
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