Ditchmonkey
Junior Member
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2014
- Messages
- 55
- Reaction score
- 13
I have a 100SF cottage that I want to run power to. My initial idea was to put a 30 amp breaker in the garage and run wires to the cottage. The run would be about 170 feet, and calculators state I would probably need a 6 or even 4 gauge wire, and my eyeballs just about popped out of my head when I priced that wiring.
I talked with a local electrician about it and he said I should run 240 to a subpanel at the cottage, and run 2 20 amp circuits in the cottage. This would let me get away with running 10 gauge wire. Sounds good to me!
However, I'm a complete newbie when it comes to electricity. Can someone fill in the details for me on how/why this works? It seems counter intuitive that I am doubling the voltage, but reducing the gauge of the wires. Can someone explain the basics of how this works?
I talked with a local electrician about it and he said I should run 240 to a subpanel at the cottage, and run 2 20 amp circuits in the cottage. This would let me get away with running 10 gauge wire. Sounds good to me!
However, I'm a complete newbie when it comes to electricity. Can someone fill in the details for me on how/why this works? It seems counter intuitive that I am doubling the voltage, but reducing the gauge of the wires. Can someone explain the basics of how this works?