Our house has a garage was added on later. The garage and house share a roof with a breezeway between them. When we moved in, I noticed a coil of wire in the rafters of the breezeway. Waving my detector I determined that it was hot. At the main panel it was connected to a 50 amp breaker. This breaker is now off, taped off, and labeled.
The garage is not wired.
The wire itself appears to be the stuff that runs from the house to the pole: Two insulated strands, and one bare strand, all three very heavy guage.
I suspect that when the previous owner added the garage, they stubbed in this line for eventual use to put a sub panel in the garage.
My reading of the Alberta electrical code simplified (the green book.) is that this wire is not code for in house wiring. It's not clear to me whether the rafter space of a breezeway in inside or outside.
Eventually I want to wire the garage properly. Replacing this wire will be difficult, as it feeds into the wall from above, but feeds into the main distribution panel (which is in the wall adjacent to the breezeway) from the bottom.
I can see the concern because of the bare wire. Ground isn't always ground. Would it be reasonable to use this wire to go to a sub panel using the bare wire as the neutral: if:
- A plastic junction box is affixed to the wall where the wire comes out.
- The entire route to the sub panel is in 1.25" plastic conduit.
- The bare wire is used as neutral, and is bonded to the grounding post in the sub panel, as well as the neutral bus.
- The subpanel is grounded to earth.
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