Popular Post collinb Posted February 15, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 15, 2020 It's nice not having to drag power cords around anymore. And a couple of 20 amp circuits really helps. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
difalkner Posted February 15, 2020 Report Share Posted February 15, 2020 It's great, isn't it! When we decided to use our two-car garage for our shop I wanted to be able to run everything without having to chase extension cords so I put in a subpanel and outlets (I had an electrician friend check my work). The only tool other than an ROS or jig saw that needs to be plugged in to use is the same planer you have. If I used it every day I would keep it plugged in but for now I plug it in when I need it (also a 20 amp circuit like yours - the only way to go in the shop!). This makes all the difference in the world, for sure! Right now I only have one free single phase 220v outlet left. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post wtnhighlander Posted February 16, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 16, 2020 Ha! I 'solved' the extension cord dilemma by moving into a shed so small that any corded tool I have can reach any outlet along the wall from the center of the room! Table top glue-ups have become very interesting.... 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted February 16, 2020 Report Share Posted February 16, 2020 More power is great. My house had a 100 amp 20 space panel when i moved in and it was full. I upgraded to a 200 amp service with 42 spaces and life seems great. I really don't understand how a new 3,000 sq ft house was able to be built with a 20 space 100 amp panel in the 90s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post duckkisser Posted February 16, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 16, 2020 When I bought my house it had a single light bulb and garage door already out there but it was only like 10-20 amps, normal for most garages. I figure as long as I have the electricity already out there I would expand the power to the lights and garage door so I could put in 8 florescent shop lights. I ran a second line out to my garage and put in a panel and then ran power all around the shop. the second panel is a must don't really want to go up to the house to reset power every time I trip the breaker. If I go up to the house then Ill stop to get a bite to eat, check my email etc.…. and two hours have gone by. Now with the second line and panel if I trip the power on one of the machines...(happened a few times till the power was wired up the way I wanted it). The lights stay on and I lose power to the walls, take two second to reset it. I didn't want to wander around in black shop trying to find panel completely blind. one of the best things I ever did in my shop. its not super pretty just boxes and pipe mounted straight to the wall. no recessed drywall plugs and its definitely not super professional but pure industrial. hey its a garage wood shop don't get a lot of visitors. I do have one wind up extension cord like what you have that I have in middle of the ceiling so that I can have a line to anywhere like when I'm vacuuming, other then that there is a 4 prong plug ever 4 feet on the walls. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
collinb Posted February 17, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 On 2/16/2020 at 9:52 AM, Chestnut said: More power is great. My house had a 100 amp 20 space panel when i moved in and it was full. I upgraded to a 200 amp service with 42 spaces and life seems great. I really don't understand how a new 3,000 sq ft house was able to be built with a 20 space 100 amp panel in the 90s. My house is a 1967 build with a 100A box for 2,200 sq ft. Think about 1967 ... No computers. Lamps on outlets, usually turned off when one leaves a room. Probably all wind-up mechanical clocks. Maybe an electric garage door opener. Gas stove. IOW, not a lot of constant current draw. An aux box was added for the electric stove. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 Man you couldn't convince me to go to an electric stove.... I wonder what the power consumption for a household looks like over time. With a lot of today's energy efficient appliances and gadgets I theorize that energy use per household is goign down. LED light bulbs have saved a ton of money on lighting. The only area where there isn't much room to improve is electric heat, though insulation and air sealing standards have gone through the roof. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 Interesting question. LEDs, and CFLs before them, have made a dramatic decrease in electric consumption for lighting, but I'll bet lighting is the smallest slice of the electricity pie. Not only is there the heating you mentioned, but cooling, cooking, refrigeration, instant on TV's and always on computers. As an example I have a lot of lighting in my workshop (like a dozen fluorescent fixtures), which, IIRC, draws 9 amps at 120V, so about one kilowatt. And IIRC the shop heater draws 40 amps at 240V so we're close to ten kilowatts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
collinb Posted February 17, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 1 hour ago, Chestnut said: Man you couldn't convince me to go to an electric stove.... I wonder what the power consumption for a household looks like over time. With a lot of today's energy efficient appliances and gadgets I theorize that energy use per household is goign down. LED light bulbs have saved a ton of money on lighting. The only area where there isn't much room to improve is electric heat, though insulation and air sealing standards have gone through the roof. We had gas in an earlier residence. She didn't mind the cleaning on the basic gas stove with the smaller grates over the burners. But she did not want to deal with the large cast grates on the new ones. We were about to go gas again when my wife saw the glass-top electric. She wanted the cleaning ease so much ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 Glass top electrics aren't all THAT easy to clean. Best to avoid spilling anything on the elements There is a good reason mine came with a paint scraper included. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 23 minutes ago, collinb said: We had gas in an earlier residence. She didn't mind the cleaning on the basic gas stove with the smaller grates over the burners. But she did not want to deal with the large cast grates on the new ones. We were about to go gas again when my wife saw the glass-top electric. She wanted the cleaning ease so much ... Oh the cast iron grates are a dream compared to the old enameled ones. They don't chip and crud doesn't stick to them. I just blast mine with hot water or stick them in the dish washer. They got smart and made the pans the the burners sit in black which helps them look a lot cleaner as well. Cooking performance is unmatched and I use primarily cast iron for cooking. Cast iron and glass tops don't really get along, it's possible but not always the best. 40 minutes ago, Mark J said: Interesting question. LEDs, and CFLs before them, have made a dramatic decrease in electric consumption for lighting, but I'll bet lighting is the smallest slice of the electricity pie. Not only is there the heating you mentioned, but cooling, cooking, refrigeration, instant on TV's and always on computers. As an example I have a lot of lighting in my workshop (like a dozen fluorescent fixtures), which, IIRC, draws 9 amps at 120V, so about one kilowatt. And IIRC the shop heater draws 40 amps at 240V so we're close to ten kilowatts. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/homes.php So i researched this after I posted because I had to know. I guess overall energy use in the US has plateaued but our population is still increasing. So use per household is decreasing drastically. The current TV's use a fraction the power old TVs did. Computers aren't commonplace any more most people use phones or tablets. Also my computer only draws 23 watts at idle and 30 watts under usage this is a tower with spinning hard disks and everything. My older computers drew a LOT more power. The one thing that shocks me is the water heating cost. My water is heated by gas and my gas bill in the summer when the heating isn't running is pretty much non existent. I use 16 therms per month in the summer for drying cloths, heating water, and cooking food. Heat in the winter I use about 180 therms. So even if my water heat is all of that 16 therms. I realize this is national averages and more people live in climates that don't need heat in the winter like wee do. My point is heating water is not even close to 19% of my energy use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 Can't argue that gas or fuel oil produce a lot more heat than electric. Just have to deal with the risk of CO poisoning, exploding gas lines and such. FWIW, I heat with propane, but via an external HVAC system. All else is electric. I miss a former house with gas heated water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Mark J Posted February 17, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 40 minutes ago, Chestnut said: My point is heating water is not even close to 19% of my energy use. Clearly there are no teenagers in your household. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legenddc Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 Or kids in general. Between baths and all the extra laundry we work our hot water heater pretty good. We have a gas dryer too so the 5 loads of laundry a week runs up the gas bill. Always interests me to see what issues arise from things like better insulation/sealed up houses = more radon removal systems. LED lights can create issues with snow not melting on stoplights, etc. I think we have an 80amp panel on our ~2,300 ft townhouse from 1974. Always a guessing game to see what is on what circuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
collinb Posted February 17, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 57 minutes ago, Chestnut said: Oh the cast iron grates are a dream compared to the old enameled ones. They don't chip and crud doesn't stick to them. I just blast mine with hot water or stick them in the dish washer. They got smart and made the pans the the burners sit in black which helps them look a lot cleaner as well. Cooking performance is unmatched and I use primarily cast iron for cooking. Cast iron and glass tops don't really get along, it's possible but not always the best. She wouldn't have minded if the cast grates were per-burner. But she didn't like the weight of those that cover half the stove top. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 19 minutes ago, legenddc said: LED lights can create issues with snow not melting on stoplights, etc. That was a very easy fix. Stop lights have a heating element that is triggered during snowfall to melt the snow and ice. Uses a tiny fraction of the energy compared to the old stoplights. This isn't including the reduced downtime to burnouts. 33 minutes ago, Mark J said: Clearly there are no teenagers in your household. Teenagers? bah I still take 45 min showers. It's frigging COLD here!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 2 hours ago, Chestnut said: Stop lights have a heating element that is triggered during snowfall to melt the snow and ice. Not in The city of Chicago. There the only way to know if the lightçs red is the flash from the red light camera in your mirror. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 Must be the street light cleaners union that has tight control on that. The rest of civilization just installed LED bulbs with heaters. It's conveniently all 1 unit. (this is a joke i remember someone saying a lot of the codes and ordinances in the Chicago area are heavily influenced by the unions.) My guess is that they were early adopters and haven't installed retrofits yet for some political reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckkisser Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 its not the unions that stopped this from happen it was probably a politician that "set aside" money to retrofit them and somehow the money disappeared just about the same time a new house was built. pssssss don't tell anyone but we have a lot of crooks in Illinois, that is why I will eventually move out of state. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 23 minutes ago, Chestnut said: ...i remember someone saying a lot of the codes and ordinances in the Chicago area are heavily influenced by the unions... I lot of them were borne out of the Great Chicago fire of the 1870's (if I recall correctly) as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bankstick Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 My father was an ME in the appliance industry for close to 40 years. If you watch the chefs and cooking shows, they all cook with gas. My son has followed his grandfather's footsteps. Now ranges have dual-fuel. Gas for the efficiency of the top burners plus instant on/instant off. Try that with an electric element. The dual fuel comes from using electric elements for the oven. It is easier to conform an element for even heat distribution than moving or adding gas burners. An additional benefit for ovens is convection. When anything is cooking, there is a "layer" of moisture over the food. This "cloud" slows down the release of moisture to bake. Convection moves that "cloud" and allows faster cooking/baking in the oven. My first job while in HS was working in R&D for a convection deck oven. Baked rolls, frozen pies and cakes in waaay less time than conventional ovens. One day, I baked 36 white cake layers in the morning. Engineers made a minor change for heat distribution. After lunch, I baked 36 more to check for even heat distribution. Used to get all kinds of stares at the grocery- case of cake mix, several dozen eggs, two or three cans of shortening, ten pounds of flour to dust the cake pans. One time Dad figured the energy usage for a company using electric, propane and natural gas. Cost for one million BTUs was 26.40; 7.28; 2.48, respectively. This was based on the energy cost for that city. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Ronn W Posted February 18, 2020 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 19 hours ago, pkinneb said: I lot of them were borne out of the Great Chicago fire of the 1870's (if I recall correctly) as well Yeah, no more cows in the City. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 18, 2020 Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 Actually there was just a news item about some guy keeping a horse in his back yard. Apparently it's legal, not kind, considerate or very smart, but legal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
collinb Posted February 19, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2020 18 hours ago, Mark J said: Actually there was just a news item about some guy keeping a horse in his back yard. Apparently it's legal, not kind, considerate or very smart, but legal. But excellent garden fertilizer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 19, 2020 Report Share Posted February 19, 2020 On 2/17/2020 at 4:12 PM, duckkisser said: pssssss don't tell anyone but we have a lot of crooks in Illinois, And now one of them has gotten out of prison. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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