Making Changes

 There are changes happening in the garage shop.  There are things that I have wanted to do in the past three homes that I have lived in.  I have wanted to add more electrical outlets in the garage.  I finally did it because I am hoping to stay in this place a little longer than the last one.  I upgraded the line to a 20amp breaker and added 2 more outlets.  I can now have my scroll saw and drill press always plugged in.  the third is for the extension cord that I use for the mobile equipment.  

The line was pretty simple.  It was on one wall in line with the electrical panel.  There was little damage to the dry wall.  I did have help because I do not like electricity and have never done work in the panel.  He did panel and wiring work and I watched for the most part.  

I did upgrade the line from a 15 amp to a 20 amp breaker.  This is largely because I was tipping the breaker when running the table saw and shop vac at the same time.  There is another reason that I will get to later (probably another post).  

I actually looked at some of my equipment specifications and they said I need a 25 amp breaker.  There is no such thing at the local box stores.  Ironically, some of my tools have a 16 amp startup draw and a 14 gauge plug. So I knew that a 20 amp line would be fine.  If I went to a 30 amp breaker, I would need new plugs on everything.

There is a thing called new work and old work fixtures.  That was a mind blowing experience.  New work is for all the stuff that drywall is not in place.  Old work makes it real easy to put the junction boxes in drywall.  

There are a lot of breakers out there.  Make sure to know which breaker to get.  It is actually pretty straight forward to replace the breaker.  That being said, I still don't ever want to do it.

I did help install the wiring in the outlets and attach the outlets in the wall.  When we first powered the line the circuit blew.  Why did it blow, I had the ground touching the hot wire when I put the wires in the the box.  One more reason I do not like working on electricity.