Romex color code?

[N8N]

I'm not sure that's a big issue, at least for residential work - where except for an electric water heater do you typically have 30A branch circuits?

nate

[Steve Barker LT]

A/C outdoor unit. Dryer.

[EXT]

Add Red to the list, it is for electric heaters and contains no white wires only black and red for 240V circuits.

[Nate Nagel]

I've got a 40A breaker for the (future) A/C unit in my house; I didn't think of a dryer because gas appliances are teh rox0rs.

nate

[Mark Lloyd]

My water heater uses gas (no electricity), but there are three 30A circuits: dryer, cooktop, and oven.

[Steve Barker LT]

My new heat pump unit took a 30A. 10-2 w/ground. White wire taped black on both ends. 3 ton york.

[gfretwell]

That still might have a 10ga or even a 12ga wire going to it. You size it by the label on the condenser.

[Larry Caldwell]

I also have 30A circuits for the well pump and the woodshed sub-panel.

[Doug Miller]

Must be a heck of a well pump -- I've had two homes with private wells, and in each case the wells were on 15A 240V circuits.

[gfretwell]

Sounds more like a 129v pump on a long run ... or a huge pump 3hp or more for sprinklers.

[Larry Caldwell]

15 amps won't run much of a pump. They must be shallow wells. Actually, my pump circuit runs two pumps, the well pump and the cistern pump, an ultraviolet sterilizer, and sometimes a heater, plus incidentals like pump house lights.

My last place also had a 30 amp service to the well, which was 450' deep and provided all the water you could pump. 30 amps got me 15 gpm of sweet water at 45 psi out of that well. I wish I had it here.

[Gary]

Anyone know about airconditioning? I'm doing my own house wiring and want to put future ac on the house. The room where the wire will go through in the basement will be finished with the house to I want to run the wire to the boiler room right now. The heating guy speced out at 2-1/2 ton unit and is now putting in the ac coil, ac lines to outside, and fancoil. I asked him what wire to use and he says the electrician handles that. I am the electrician and since I don't have the unit I don't know what wire to use. Does anyone know what wire I should run out there? I don't mind oversizing it as it is a very short distance to where the future unit will be.

[Steve Barker LT]

My new 3 ton unit took a 10-2 with ground. 30a breaker. If you want to be on the safe side, run a 8-2 or 8-3 with ground. The neutral shouldn't be required, but if the ac guy won't tell you, then you have to guess. I'd just tell him you're the electrician and you need to know what size breaker and wire.

[gfretwell]

If you ran #8/2 out there you could run any residential AC you are likely to use. Your 2.5 ton is probably more like #12 Call back and tell them your electrician wants to know

"Minimum circuit ampacity" (that is the wire size) "Maximum branch circuit Over Curreent protection (that is your breaker)

You need that for the condenser and the air handler if you are not using an existing furnace for the air handling..

You will need a disconnect at each unit.

Note that the air handler will use a big breaker and big wire if you have heat strips in it. Disregard if this is just a coil in the furnace.

Also note the wire size may seem small for the breaker but if you use the label on the condenser an engineer (and NEC article 440) says it is OK. Your wire is sized to the running current of the unit, the breaker is sized to the start up current. Bigger wire is always OK.

[Larry Caldwell]

Demand the installation sheet for the AC. Tell them either they provide the installation data or they don't get paid. You will have to size the circuit yourself, but you have to know what the equipment requires before you can do anything.