Power, gas, water run to garage...

[Noozer]

Might be dumb questions, but I'm looking for some info regarding getting electricity and gas out to my garage. I've posted this elswhere, but still looking for some feedback.

I'm located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. My garage is 24feet by 32feet, with three bays. I'm considering closing one bay off from the other to for use as a workshop. The other two bays will have minimal power needs. My house has a

100amp feed.

Run from breaker box in basement to garage is about 70 feet. I want to be able to use 120v and 240v tools. I'll be the only one using the workshop, so most tools will be 120v with a tablesaw being the most power hungry, BUT I'm hoping to get a low power (30amp?) mig welder at some point.

Run from gas meter to basement is about 80 feet. This is going to be used to heat the garage.

I'm also considering some method of running a waterline out to the garage for an outside faucet to water the garden. It can get VERY cold (-40 degrees) here. It can get below freezing almost any time of the year so I'd rather avoid something that needs to be manually purged. I'm considering running a 3/4" rubber hose inside a conduit. The rubber will allow for expansion if there is a freeze and the conduit will keep the hose from being crushed. This would be at the same depth as the gas and power lines.

About 30' from the garage I will be making a 30 degree bend. Other than that, the path will be straight.

I will also be running one RG6 cable, two Cat5e cables for alarm & phone and two Cat5e cables for networking.

What I'd like to know is...

- How deep and wide of a trench do I need to bury all of this safely? I don't think there is a minimum distance between gas and power here in Calgary, but I haven't looked into that.

- What gauge wiring do I need to use and what size breaker in my basement? I figure an Edison circuit from two 30amp breakers on my main panel.

- Do I need to tie the ground from my main panel in the basement to my panel in the garage, or do I need a separate ground stake at the garage?

- Should I just get the a gas contractor to come out and dig the trench for the gas line and leave it open to drop the other lines in? (ie, should I try and dig the trench to save some costs?)

- Will my ideas for the water line work?

Any thoughts or comments are welcome!

Thanks!

[Edwin Pawlowski]

There are codes that tell you exactly how deep and how far apart they must be. Codes in your area may be different than in my area. Call the utilities and your local building inspector to get the FACTs, not supposition from a bunch of us that have no clue what your town may want.

You can rent a Ditch Witch for some of the trenching though.

[Noozer]

I will, but I was looking for general thoughts on how this should be done. City code is not always the best way to do things, so I might want to go "better" than code.

I called around... $250 to rent for four hours!

[Stretch]

Noozer,

When I lived in Pennsylvania, we needed to bury water lines at least 5 feet deep to prevent freezing in normal winters. A couple of years it got down to -20, and five feet deep was not deep enough. I would suggest 7-feet deep for the water line, but ask your local water company.

The electrical will need (2) #10 hots, (1) # 10 neutral and 1 # 10 ground if you are going to a subpanel in the garage. If you are putting GFCIs in the house, they cannot share a neutral, so you will need 2 neutrals then.

I do not know how far apart to separate the gas and electric, but I would not bury them together without permission from the gas company. Keep the phone lines and cat-5 away from the power, use separate conduits.

Stretch

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Teenagers that need gas money may be cheaper.

[PaPaPeng]

I ran my lines as per OP's post some 10 years ago but had gotten around just this summer to hooking them up.

1. I buried them at least 5 feet deep to be below the frost line. The cable was to code but I no longer remember what the code requirements were. The 240V cable is the same gauge as the one from the Electric company to my main panel. The cable was manufactured for direct burial and didn't need to be buried in a conduit although the code required that the ends emerging from and above the ground be protected inside a conduit.
2. The breaker from my main panel is 40 amp 240V. It is hooked up to a sub panel in the garage. There I have a 30 amp 240V breaker for my

240 outlets and separate regular 15 amp 115V breakers for the 115V outlets and the lights.

1. I ran a gas line from the house to garage. The gas line had been tested for gas pressure integrity after burial and certified. It is not connected to any gas supply or appliance. I don't think I will ever use this gas line as I don't think it is worth the cost of installing a garage furnace and heating the garage. A garage costs too much money and trouble to insulate. In any case it has a bare concrete floor that will really absorb the heat and therefore waste fuel. It will be a lot easier to wear warm clothes or don't use the garage workshop if it is too cold (at times it gets down to minus 20 to minus 40 celcius here.). After all its a hobby thing.

The Provincial code allows the electrical cable to run in the same trench so long as the electric cable and the gas line are separated by a 2 x 4 stud along its buried length.

I ran a TV coax cable as well as many phone gauge wired from the house to the garage. These are protected inside a 3/4 inch PVC conduit along the whole length, parallel with the buried electric cable and gas line. I now have a working landline phone extension to the garage. The Coax is cable TV ready. I have at least half a dozen pairs of twisted wire spares. I can't recall what I had intended them for other than one pair will be connected to the door chime to let me know someone is at the house door.

[maradcliff]

You were doing good till you got to the rubber hose setup. Just dig a trench 5 to 6 feet deep and put in black plastic tubing (or the better blue stuff). Then put a yard hydrant in the garage (like they use on farms). They dont freeze and you will have water all year, not just in warm weather. Then use the same trench for the other stuff, but the gas and power dont need to be as deep. If you want to run coax and phone wires, etc. Just put some pvc conduit and you can add more stuff later.

If you put in a separate breaker box, you need ground rods. Since you want 120 and 240, I'd recomment a separate box.

Mark

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