How do you wire a 220v outlet

For 20 amps, 12 gauge wiring is appropriate. As I said, I chose 12 gauge to match my 20 amp circuit. For , you have two hots and a ground. You can get wire , which is a bit more expensive, but has two hots one black, one red , a ground unsheathed , and a neutral white. You need for the aforementioned case where you have an appliance requiring both and volts.

For tools, as I said, this generally does not apply. I chose to cheap out and get In my area, this is perfectly find and up to code as long as you mark the white wire with red.

You can do this with liquid tape, red electrical tape, or my choice, red heat shrink. The point here is that an electrician will treat the white wire as neutral and therefore safe. The first step in the process is to mount the outlet box to hold the outlet. Tapcon includes an appropriately-sized pilot hole drill bit with their larger screw packs.

Once the pilot hole is drilled, the PVC box can be mounted using that one screw location. Lastly, all 4 screws can be put in. Red heatshrink applied to white wire to indicate it will be hot.

The next step is to wire up an outlet into the box. To start, I stripped the end of the wire I bought and added red heatshrink to the white wire to make it clear to the next guy that this is a hot, not a neutral. If you read the next step, I kind of wish I had waited to do this. The easiest approach is to cut the conduit to size. You can use a hacksaw , miter saw , or oscillating multitool else for this purpose.

Pull the un-stripped wire through the cut down conduit, and then through the top of the box. Let the conduit dangle. Now , go strip the wire, apply the red heat shrink, and curl the ends to attach to the box. Trying to push the stripped wire through the conduit was pretty annoying. The important thing is that the unshielded ground attaches to the green screw, and the two hots attach to the other two.

After that, I was able to pull the wiring back until only a few inches were left. I pulled it farther than pictured. At that point, I could simply push the outlet into the box and screw it down. Finally, I got the cover put on, completing the installation of the box. It should now be firmly mounted in place. Same procedure with Tapcons as the outlet box. The next step was to secure the conduit to the wall.

These attach in much the same way as the outlet box. I simply sunk them in with a couple of Tapcons. At this point, the outlet box is done, and completely secured to the wall. I now just have to run the wire along the joists on the ceiling to the breaker panel. Drilling holes to go through the joists as needed. Since my basement shop is not framed up or finished, it was really easy to run the wiring.

I simply followed what the original builders had done and used large staples to secure the wire along the joist. To go through the joists towards the wall, I drilled a hole as pictured. Once I reached the far wall, I again followed the staple method to get to the breaker box.

For a finished basement, this would have required a lot less stapling, but a lot more fishing of wire with fish rods , fish tape , or something similar.

To be honest, I hate doing that kind of job and would probably hire somebody. In fact, I did just that, adding this second outlet on the way to the breaker box.

The basic procedure is the same, except that both outlets tie into the junction box at the top right. The electric code in most areas does not allow wire nut connections to sit out in the open, for obvious reasons. They must be in a junction box. I could get an oversized outlet box and jam extra connections into it. Instead, I simply put in a second junction box. Wires from both outlets, as well as the breaker box, run to this junction box.

They are all connected together with wire nuts and enclosed safely inside to avoid fire risk. Up until this point, everything has been essentially safe. Nothing is actually connected to electricity yet. You could get injured opening up your breaker box.

It may also be illegal depending on your area. Was this wrong? Yes, it's wrong. Green is for ground, red is hot. You probably don't have v anymore. Not Helpful 11 Helpful Not Helpful 12 Helpful Technically you can, but you shouldn't. No building code that I know of allows this. Electric water heaters and dryers should always be on their own dedicated circuit. At the very least, you would be tripping breakers or blowing fuses constantly.

In the worst case scenario, you could electrocute someone or burn your house down. Not Helpful 19 Helpful Single phase systems are used mostly in residential panels. If you have ever seen a panel, you would see that there are breakers on both sides of the panel.

Each side is volts, and both sides together are volts. It's called single phase is because you can only have one phase variance between the two wires. Not Helpful 16 Helpful Not Helpful 8 Helpful I have a outlet that has 10 wires for the neutral ground and one hot leg.

The other hot leg is a 8 wire. Is this a problem? It's sloppy, and indicates the installer was not paying attention, or made a slip up in wiring and didn't catch it or didn't fix it. It also implies that the wiring was not properly inspected. Whether this problem could lead to a fire depends on the amperage of the circuit breaker, and the length of the wires from the breaker to the receptacle.

Not Helpful 6 Helpful 4. Can I switch a single breaker with a double safely if I need more outlets? The short answer is yes. However, if you are wiring according to the current national electric code, then you may be required to use arc-fault-circuit-interrupter breakers. I have found these hard to find for double breakers, perhaps because they are not manufactured yet. Not Helpful 11 Helpful 3. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

By using this service, some information may be shared with YouTube. Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0. Working with your electrical system can cause serious injury or death. Related wikiHows How to. How to. More References Master Electrician. Expert Interview. About This Article. Co-authored by:. Co-authors: Updated: June 29, Categories: Cabling and Wiring Connection. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read , times.

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Follow Us. Subscribe You're all set! But for now, this pretty much covers a simple 15 or 20 amp volts. The red wire is really just red for the picture. This setup does not use a neutral wire. The neutral wire is a return path back to the transformer, in other words, a balanced.

And this is considered a two-wire setup. You may like to read my how to wire a clothes dryer using 4 wire. This setup uses the neutral wire. Click here. K, going to add a volt outlet in my garage for an air compressor, the compressor requires 20 amp. The question:. I already have electric in the garage that runs the lights and a couple of outlets. You would install a sub panel. Follow the link if you see one here. Or look in electrical on the main menu on top.

Great info and fun to watch video. You told me all I need for next step and saved me time and money. Hot tub awaits!