Tiny House Electrical Service (Ep.38)
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2024
- We install the panel and cabling that will power the tiny house.
Tiny Nest follows Jake & Kiva's tiny house project, from the early stages, to completion and beyond.
3D TINY HOUSE DESIGN TUTORIAL --- bit.ly/tiny-design
IRON EAGLE TRAILER DISCOUNT --- bit.ly/tiny-tra...
BUILDING SERIES --- bit.ly/tiny-build
SUBSCRIBE --- bit.ly/tiny-sub...
SOCIAL MEDIA --- bit.ly/tiny-social
-- music in this episode --
Artist: Broke For Free
Track: If
Finally a good tiny house electrical video.
+Grahamsoffgridgold Several more on the way soon :)
Nothing beats neat wiring. Great job.
If you are going to pull 50 Amps I would use #6 wire. Number 8 is rated for 40 amps. check local code for variances. its a good rule of thumb to use the heavier wire for a main. Also where is your Main Breaker?
+Ron Barchfeld Thanks for the feedback :) #8 is actually good for up to 55A if rated for 90-degrees-C and 40A @ 60-C... there can be issues with the temperature rating of breakers and whatnot that can affect the ampacity value that you have to use for the conductor.... but we're planning on starting with 30A anyway, and only if we experience issues would we try to go higher. Several people have asked about a main breaker, and my answer is basically "why would we need a main breaker?" There will never be a situation where we are fed from an unprotected source, and so the only reason for a local main breaker would be to shut off the bus of our panel, which I decided did not merit the use and space-allocation of another breaker. Plus, your comment reminded me that there is a small chance that we may want to upgrade to higher than 30A, in which case having a main breaker would mean that we'd have to swap out two breakers instead of just the one at the source (which will be the main house's garage panel).
Main is just a safety matter if you ever need to kill the power its better to turn off one breaker than a panel full of breakers. its also code in the USA and a local code in Florida.
I have a main on the outside of my Father/Mother In Laws cabin the the Georga Mountains. I dont have a main inside but so many times I wish I didnt have to go outside to turn off the power.
In Florida Number 8 is only good on 40 amp circuits. But it might be because most all homes have Electric heat, Water Heaters and 50 amp Range which must have number 6 wire. I enjoyed your videos and will use ideas if I ever make a tiny home I may just build a 500 square feet cottage and forget the trailer. I dont plan on moving so the need to move the house is non existing.
+Ron Barchfeld We're not anticipating the need to turn off the entire panel frequently, but if we do find it to be inconvenient we'll definitely make an update.
Hm it may be the ambient temperature due to the weather in Florida? Ranges are usually done in #8 copper here.
Thanks for watching and commenting :)
I love how meticulous you are! And thanks for all the tips!!
:D
I think either I would have had a storage box for the flexible cable that will be plugged in like on a travel trailer or I would have wired in a 50 amp receptacle and had a removable cord that can be stowed away when you have to move the house.
Hey Jake and Kiva! What product did you guys end up using to measure your electrical usage? Thanks :)
Still haven't done that! but plan on DIYing it with arduino... we'll make a video when it's working :)
You do such great work, Jake. You're an artist! (Uh... artiste?) Thanks for showing us the right way. I've had to fix some badly botched electrical jobs done by some real bozos.
+Bryant Ford Oh so have I lol :P Thanks for watching!
Good work on all your Videos. I would hope many will benefit from the valuable information!
+Ron Barchfeld Thanks for watching, and for your comments!
What's the term you are using for wire nuts? I hadn't heard that before.
Putting that protective steel plate over the cable is a good idea. Seems like letting it extend higher would be a good idea too.
+MakeMeThinkAgain I've always known them as "marrettes". We've used protection plates elsewhere too, but this is probably the most important one (aside from the propane line).
Your #8 wiring is unprotected if you feed into the lugs like that. What you should do is back feed into a 50A (or lower) breaker and label it main. This also gives you a disconnect at the panel to quickly shut everything off if necessary. Sorry if my comments seem rude, just trying to help out and maybe get the right info out there for other folks as well
+Bike Man Dan The #8 wires will be protected by the breaker that feeds them. You would never want to feed a tiny house directly from an unprotected source like the load side of a meter, the way a house is (which would essentially be straight off the transformer on the pole). We may run off a 30A breaker (from the garage sub-panel) so that we can use a #10 outdoor cable. You are right that a locally back-fed breaker could act as a main and allow for complete shut-down, but we have so many circuits that it would have taken up too much space, and we don't feel the need for that functionality in our system. So our panel will act as a load-centre.
Your feedback is much appreciated! But be aware that I am an electrician, so out of all the things we've done on this project, this is the one that I DO know about :D
+Tiny Nest Fair enough. My thinking was that because this is a mobile house like an RV, your input power is sometimes a question mark
+Bike Man Dan Indeed, it might be more work but I'll always be able to make it happen (safely) as an electrician. Even RV hookups, like 30A or 50A receptacles, would be protected to those respective values.
Sick
I guess I'm having problems following you. You're wiring the box as if it was 220. I understand that you want to be able to isolate the high current draw items. So are you going to run 220 to the tiny house or 2 -110 cables?
I agree with you. One should design something above minimal code. If you want to add circuits or do something different you have the options without having to recreate the wheel.
+1timby We're going to run 240V from the source (the main house in this case) to the tiny house, using one 3-wire cable.
+Tiny Nest Got it. So you're not really going to be mobile.
+1timby That's right, we don't plan on moving much. It's more that we have the option to do so in rare cases.
The use of a 125 amp box, but using a feed rated for less, can quickly head towards a code violation (lol), if the main breaker does not reflect the amp rating of the weak link. Be sure the main breaker does not exceed the weak link. (conservatively 50 amps?...but 60 amps, just as good). Just as a matter of "compliance".
I'm watching because you guys are awesome. Do not think I'm being critical, my jobs are numbers....numbers...numbers....lol.
The house will never be fed from an unprotected source. Currently it is supplied by a 40A breaker in the garage sub-panel of the main house. We don't even have a main breaker in the panel, because it is acting as a load-center.
Appropriate circuit protection is extremely important and I'm glad you're bringing it up :)
a klien screwdriver! holy smokes what happened to the mastercraft-and-fatmax jake I used to know! house is looking good, fun to see you doing electrical, even more in your element than the rest of your videos. keep it up!
+Nathaniel Usher Ha! probably my only Klein tool :P did you notice the Stanley impact!? Still rockin that whole set aww yeah. Lot's more electrical videos coming up, but we're way past that in reality. You should come by some time :)
so i recently did this step but those videos won't be out till December but.. i used 12/2 wire. i made my black and white positive to push 20 amps each for 40 amps total. and then i used my bare copper wire as the neutral. how bad is this? I've heard if that neutral wire comes in contact with any metal that it will become live. can i cover the bare copper wire to make it "OK"?
+Tiny House Customs hmmm... well the number one thing I would point out here is that a neutral carries just as much current as your hot conductor, and the bare conductors (inside a multi-conductor cable) are often one gauge size less than the insulated ones... so if you pushed upwards of 40A through that system, you'd be exceeding the capacity of that bare conductor by more than double and could very easily melt it and/or start a fire :|
Additionally, you wouldn't want to use the bare as a neutral anyway. You theoretically "could", but absolutely shouldn't for a few reasons.
Also, you mentioned using the two insulated conductors as "positive", does this mean you're talking DC?
Oh man.. I should send you the links for the 2 part series. So I figured I could just connect the black and white wire to two separate 20 amp breakers. Not sure what DC is.. But my breaker box is similar to yours with two sides. like a red and black for positive. Didn't realize the bare copper would be carrying a full 40 amp load.
+Tiny House Customs I thought you meant you were going to use the black and white in parallel to double the ampacity... If your breaker box is split into two buses and you want to use both of them, you need to bring in both legs/lines of the services, meaning 240V, meaning a 3-conductor (PLUS bare bond) cable. You could get the two lines in with a 12/2, but only the two lines, meaning you'd only have 240V available... you need a neutral and a bare ground/bond or the system will not work properly and if it's not balanced/split the right way (including from the source) it could be very unsafe :(
You should really have someone come look at it in person ;)
(DC = direct current, like on battery/solar)
So I have a 30 amp generator supplying 120 not 240. Just a regular 30 amp camper plug. Can I use a jumper wire two power both legs on my panel or can I only use one side of the panel since I'm only supplying 120?
This has come up before... I think it would probably be fine, as long as the jumper wire is sized correctly, and can't possibly see more current than it's rated for... but with only 30A available, I would be surprised if you needed so many breakers that you'd need to modify a two-leg panel :P
Your videos are so helpful! I do have a question though, and forgive me if this is a dumb question. With the wiring setup that you have, would you be able to add a 50 amp RV inlet as your power source so that if you were to stay at an RV park it would make for a quick connect and disconnect?
Thanks for watching :) We could theoretically hook up to a 50A RV source... but it would need to be 240V to energize the entire system... I'm not sure if that's the standard for 50A RV plugs.
+Tiny Nest Great to know! so very helpful.
:)
I see you recessed everything, are you concerned at all about heat loss through the panel? I know in most houses the panel isn't recessed for this reason. Maybe it's not a big enough deal, or are you going to enclose that with some insulated panel?
+Robert Mantel Most of the panels I've worked on are installed so that the cover is flush with the finished wall surface, BUT the walls are usually deeper than 2x4 and the wall cladding is thicker too... I did sneak once layer of sil-gasket (love that stuff) between the back-side of the panel and the plywood sheathing, just so it's not completely bare. Our climate is very mild so we chose to go with the benefits of tucking everything into the wall, but if it was a big concern you could definitely surface-mount it.
So the plan is to hard wire in to where ever you park it? I would think you'd use a 50A RV outlet.
+Steve 1961P. Hard-wire it yes. I could always put a female cord-end on it to allow for easy connection/disconnection, but as far as I know, 50A RV outlets are 120V, so that would not work with our setup.
+Tiny Nest This is what I found at better and updated campgrounds. www.homedepot.com/p/Eaton-Power-Outlet-Panel-Unmetered-CHU1N7N4NS/100168377
This is the same chord I used for my 29 foot 5th wheel.. www.homedepot.com/p/NU-CORD-25-ft-6-3-8-1-RV-Extension-Cord-94552E/205324852?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cVF&gclid=Cj0KEQjwvJqvBRCL77m2-uKczsIBEiQAkx8VjHhAVX0Um6Xu98sIHwHGjmDa0xmvBDMqO4-7Of3GMRcaAm718P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds
+Steve 1961P. Ah, well that certainly looks like 50A at 240V, so that would work then. Like I said, I'd never inspected a 50A RV hookup, so thanks for sharing!
+Steve 1961P. Looks interesting and like it might solve my power input problem. Can you or Jake explain something to me? Are the outlets shown inside the box you linked to at Home Depot meant to take live extension cord of the appropriate amperage as power in, i.e. is it meant to feed power in through the outlets and then the tiny house would be wired through the top to the box to the tiny house's service panel? Or are those meant to be outlets for power out and the top input would have service coming in from the electric company, and then you use the outlets with extension cords to yet another box on your tiny house?
+Pario ...I'm afraid I'm not following your question :P
Nice clean work. You would be more than welcome on my jobsite. Do you plan on producing more tiny houses for the masses?
+The Contractor Dude :D for now we just want to finish this one because it's taking forever :P
Forgive me if this seems like a dumb question, but, what is the difference between volts and amps? I was just going to wire my outlets 5 to one breaker (I think 20 amp) except my outlet for the air-conditioning window unit, in that case, it will have it's own dedicated circuit. The window unit is 115 volts. Will 115 volts be too much for a 20 amp breaker? I am very confused on the math of electricity. I do plan on having a certified electrician check my work but I'd like to get it right the first time.
oops! I just looked up the circuit box I was going to get, not 20 amp, 100 amp is what it says. Anyway, can I hook up anything electrical with that box? I also just looked up my water heater (electric) and it says it is 240 volt connection. Is that one of those funny shaped connections? Does it need to be on its own circuit too?
Don't take this the wrong way (because we encourage DIYing and empowering individuals) but as an electrician myself, the way you've explained yourself worries me. Electrical work can very very easily mean life or death, and so if you have even the slightest doubt about what you're doing, do not do it. There is a lot to learn and understand deeply before working on electrical, so you should decide if you have the time to invest in learning, or if you should have someone else do the work. We wish you the best and be safe!
This is the one thing in our build I'm totally okay with hiring someone like you (a pro!) to take care of. Everything else I'm sure I can learn and figure out, but I don't want to mess up the electrical. You totally lost me on the explanation at the beginning. @_@
+Jorie Tappa Indeed, this (and upcoming) video is to either clarify things if you are already well-informed, or to scare you out of doing it if you aren't ;)