I *think* I can go through the knockouts in one of my outside panels,.  But like I said, I've only begun to look at that part.

Right now I want to make sure my building is set up with anything it needs UNDER the concrete, and outside the foundation wall.

The ground wire on our system runs from our OUTSIDE box down to the copper in the ground.  I think I assumed there would be an outside box on our building, but maybe there doesn't have to be.  That's where the "new construction" part comes in and where I don't know much about how people do things when they're not working with an existing situation.

That's about how this olde house was.  The people who bought and tried to resell it put in a breaker panel instead of the old fuse box, but they just wired up the old black cloth-covered wire to a few feet of Romex  coming down into the box to make it look like it was right.

We did most of the house correctly and put in the 200A service when the house was gutted, so we could get to the inside of the walls easily, but we still have (I think) two pieces of that old wire.  I just pulled one out of the porch ceiling this summer and replaced it, so one now (but that circuit is not hot.).

Anyway, with the 100, we were throwing breakers constantly, but there were not many circuits.  

I need to go and talk to my electrician friend and see what he says, since he knows our exact situation.  The one thing I do want enough of is hot water when we need it. However the water heater is going to get turned OFF when we're not using the building for a few days at a time.  Down here, heating water in a tank-style heater is where most of the money goes to make the meter spin.  I'm already a little worried about what it's going to do to the monthly bills.  I would like to go with 100A for the reasons you've mentioned.  Working with that huge cable was not fun even for a 15-20 foot span of it.  For 200A, EVERYTHING was higher-priced, even the panel box if I'm remembering correctly.

Okay I finally got to watch these videos.

The guy in the second video about wiring for the slab--confused me.

I *think* I understood that I would be running a copper wire from my panel inside, out through the wall, to the grounding rod which is driven into the ground.
'
When he speaks of grounding the slab itself, it sounds like this copper wire --the ufer some of you mentioned--needs to go INSIDE the building.  That's what's new to me.

I read this just now.  They all talk about using ufer in the footer. Not in the slab itself.  And they are all concerned about whether there is rebar in the footer/slab, etc.  It's almost like they're grounding to the SLAB itself, instead of actual earth.

My present ground for my house (we replaced the old one when we put in the 200A service is a rod driven into the ground by the outside panel, with copper wire run to it. (The rod is solid copper, too, if I remember right. )  Mine has a piece of gray plastic conduit shoved over it, but the connection is not covered.  I've seen a lot of grounding rods with no plastic at all.  Just rebar shoved into the ground with a copper line clamped onto it.

I am not saying that shoddy is how I want to go.  

I'm just not clear, since my footers are already poured, how this applies to me or does not.

Good news and bad news and maybe neutral news...

I put in a call to my master electrician today.  He can't get out here til end of the week, which will be after the pour (hopefully fill on Wednesday and pour on Thursday).  

But he did tell me for the size building I'm doing, that he believes I can do everything I need on 100 amps, including heating and cooling.  He may change his mind when he sees what I'm putting in a small structure, but if I can do 100 Amps, that would be really helpful.

I have an HVAC guy coming out to talk to me about what he would do for what I need.  I'm considering the units he calls mini-splits which (apparently) do not pull much juice, and can be controlled from zone to zone, which is exactly what I need (The storage part of the building needs to remain relatively consistent, with low humidity, but does not need to be nearly as "people comfortable" as the guest quarters, if that makes sense).  My HVAC guy says, "Stub me out 12-2 where you think I'll be setting a unit."  Cuz he can't get out here until end of the week either.


The thing is....both of the electrical people I talked to would much rather me NOT put any power under the slab.  I get it.  They like it where they can get to it.  I do too.  So while  I may not end up doing that, it's not for their comfort.  It's mainly because...

The type of construction that's used on my foundation means that to stub out "within a wall" means busting a hole in the concrete block, and coming up through the cavities.  Because for all but the bathroom walls (which are the only true "interior" walls) the "slab" edges are on top of concrete blocks.  

I've been looking at that, thinking, "Do I really need to put this under the slab, no bigger than this building is?

While I like the idea, and if it were a plain old slab on grade, or if I had more "interior" walls, I think it would make more sense.  I'm not sure the end justifies the means for my application.

I'm still not sure it doesn't, either.  

Some bad news...there is no 1 1/2" black poly pipe to be had in my area without ordering it.  There's no time to order it.  So I'm going to have to either fudge together 2" PVC, or use 1 1/4" black poly.  Not much of it around, but there is SOME.  It's fallen out of favor around here, and nobody is using it much anymore, so nobody keeps it.  Plumbing supply houses can't even get it.  I have to go to farm supply or building supply places in the small towns near me. I found the 1 1/4" at TSC.  The PEX fits into it, but once I start really curving it, I'm not sure it's going to be easy.

@AR-jedi, would you use 1 1/4 if that's the biggest you could get?  Or would you try to make pvc work?

The trouble I had getting the PEX through the small piece of 2" PVC with that one 90 degree elbow makes me  go when I start thinking about 60 feet of it with a lot of curves.

I've seen those extra long sweep 90s before.  I'm sure I can find one.

Thank you.

This week is going to be...interesting.

Big work project on top of working on the building.  so I'll be burning midnight oil for certain, and not by choice.

I will try to get to a diagram for you.

I doubt it, as there is no easy way to get any of it to where it needs to go, and it's still "can't take 200 amp service out of a 200A house" so either I have to go off the pole, and let them set another meter on the house (which will mean THEY lay the 200A wire (though I will have to dig and provide the conduit) or I pull 100A from my house and see if I can make it on that.

You know....I didn't think of searching for an irrigation supply house.

Home depot has it only up to 1.25" in the store.  They can order.  No time for that though.

Let me do some more searching and calling.

It is done.  Photos to follow.

Yesterday I spent the entire day and had zero luck finding anything, tried the 1 1/4" and was worried.

Thanks to @ar-jedi I went looking for irrigation supply.  Nobody in those businesses had what I needed.  

Something interesting happened, though, as I was calling around.

A LOOOOOONG time ago, when we first bought this house (okay really only 17 years ago) I had to cut into the black poly water line.  NOBODY had the fittings for it--no plumbing supply house anywhere in the state--not retail, anyhow.  It was sized to be the same diameter as copper pipe sizes, but nobody had the fittings to tee into it, and in particular to take it to cpvc, which is what we needed at the time.  The water company had laid that line  (in the 70s, we were guessing) and there was ONE person there who knew something about it.  They actually sent me to the place where THEY source their pipe and fittings.  

Over the years, I lost the name of that business, and it had moved at least twice (turns out it had changed names, too).

Today I ended up calling that business without knowing it.

Guy behind the counter was my last hope at getting the 1 1/2" pipe.  He actually said he would call ADS (they have a distribution warehouse about an hour north of me) and if there was any there, he would buy it and let me do the pickup and pay him, so I could get it today.

Calls me back about half an hour later and said, "I've actually got a roll here.  It's not black it's blue, and it's for another customer. But they're not in a hurry. I'll let you have it if you want it, and I'll get them another one."

Me:

(I'm going to have a lot of people to bake for this Christmas) I had seen the blue stuff on the ADS website, but didn't know it was basically the same use/etc, but it was higher pressure and more expensive so I didn't even look hard at it.

So I bought a hundred foot roll of PEX, and went for the blue pipe.  The blue pipe makes the PEX handle a lot easier, actually, but I had to get my handyman guy over here for a couple of hours.  It took two of us to feed the PEX into the sleeve.

It's higher pressure than I need, and cost more than the black would have, but I don't care at this point.  Unless one of y'all tell me this blue stuff will turn my PEX into goo, I'm calling this part done (for now anyway).  Guy swore it was the same stuff, just blue.




















Also...I did pick up a pack of the duct seal, and hate to sound like such a fraidy cat, but after finding out that TAPE will destroy PEX, I think I should ask... @ar-Jedi  did you check on using this against the PEX?   I know you did, because you're more thorough than I am, even.   Just worrying that whatever keeps the play-doh soft will damage the polymers in the pipe.

So now the next pressing question...

I called the electrical inspector.  He has not called me back, so I don't know the correct "permit-acceptable" answer to the "grounding the slab" question.

I also asked several other people who have knowledge of these sorts of things, and since I did not put the grounds in the footers, they were stumped about what I should or should not do with regard to the slab.  
The bottom line is that nobody understands, really, WHY you are supposed to do anything within the slab itself, or not enough to reason through it with logic.

Because of the way my building foundation is set up, Anything I put in at this point has to be either OUTSIDE the building, or actually INSIDE the building--and I don't mean in a wall.  

I am NOT INCLINED to hammer drill through this 6000 lb concrete.

I am inclined to just ground outside the building and call it done.  

Since they fill and build that last wall tomorrow, I don't have a lot of wiggle room to remain undecided. I WILL ask my foundation guy when he gets here, and I do have two 8-foot pieces of #4 rebar in my urban assault vehicle.

So I apologize for the quality of these diagrams.  They're very rough, I've erased a lot and moved stuff around.   Most of my focus has been on the bathroom, so there aren't a lot of drawings of the whole thing.

Note that the "shop double doors" on the long part of the building swing both ways?



Also notice the complete absence of stairs?

Yeah, that's cuz I can't make up my mind how to configure them or where to put them.  I don't have a lot of tolerance for bends in stairs in a utility building with an upstairs storage loft.  I tend to think  "in through the shop double doors, and straight up the stairs."  But stairs that turn sure do make good use of space.

For any of you who missed this little detail...the "upstairs" will be a loft added AFTER the building is dried in.   Right now, that's just going to be a really tall part of the building.



Anyway...

Today I did make one decision-- my PEX in the blue pipe is no longer coming up under the sink base in the little "art kitchenette" (just an antique sink, coffeemaker and minifridge, basically) because as I was thinking about the reason for sleeving the PEX, I kept coming back to.."if it's under that sink, there's no way I'm going to be able to pull PEX through it to fish more even if I needed to."    I couldn't see just stubbing it out in the floor somewhere, even up against a wall.  After seeing Ar-jedi's little mechanical room, I was jelly and considered trying to do that for the water heater, power, and water ingress, but I couldn't make it make sense on an interior wall.     I may yet figure something out for the water heater.

All this angst comes of starting with a "storage shed" then adding a bathroom, then deciding the bathroom should be freaking AWESOME because..you know....that's mostly my labor which is going really cheap for this project, and because I have the skills and I can...
But the downside of that is that I did not design this building from the front end with that bathroom in mind.  I "fit it in later" so use of space is not necessarily (okay it's just plain NOT) as efficient as it should be.  

So.....


I know y'all can't tell anything from looking at my pipes, but...



There was one free wall that was not riddled with drain pipes--the angled one at the end of the bathroom, with nothing but a tub vent in it.  It's also the only wall that could potentially shift a little based on need when we're framing.  So I'm stubbing out the PEX in that wall.  

Here's a view of it, but it's not oriented like the diagram.  Sorry.






The outside of that wall with the PEX does not need to be pretty, so I can easily leave an access panel there for a shutoff valve, and even after the rest of the plumbing work is done that panel can remain.  I could even put a hinge on it. This part of the building--past the bathroom and kitchenette-- is straight up utility/storage/shop.


I forgot to put a compass orientation on this diagram for you, but the bottom line is, when you look out the back of our house, you are looking  at the side of the building where the water comes in, the waste comes out, and the power will also enter--you will be looking at the "pulley" end of the tall part of the barn on my wine-induced original sketch.   THAT sketch, though, did not have the two-foot jag that gave poor Andrew such angst.  The arrow on the left of the sketch points to the two-foot jag.





Now, thinks I,  .....maybe my subconscious mind wanted that two-foot jag for a reason.

[i]That's actually the perfect spot for my electrical panel..

I just don't know if it'll fit.

Here's the structure..



Here's an orientation shot with the water ingress and the drain egress.



Now I'm standing on top of the blue water supply, basically..



And there's my two-foot jag.

Seems to me that I could go either UNDER the main drain into the block wall, or OVER the main drain, into the block wall, and stub out IN THE WALL to go up to my breaker panel.

This is from the inside of that jag.




Here's a look down the block toward the footer.  I've got a straight shot to bring the conduit up.




That jag should be 32" but it's actually 31 3/4 at that point.  (Yes, I see the missing mortar in that block. I found a couple of those done by AFC's minions.  If he doesn't notice it tomorrow, I will "ask about it" as a reminder.

I don't know the spacing 2 X 6 corners take up.  With the 2 X 6 walls and the extra framing at the corners, will I have 16" in there to set a breaker panel?

If so,  do you see issues with the location,  and/or do you have suggestions?

An exterior "garden door" (a door with a lot of glass in it) will open back against that two-foot jag wall.  Nothing can be back there, so...breaker panel?

~Kitties

Agreed.  If I had used pvc, I would have stubbed it out closer.   Most recent post explains why this was probably best.

I don't understand the line in green above.  Do you mean the PANEL door?

Or do you mean the entry door?

Entry door, no problem.

I just don't plan to access the electrical panel with the garden door open.

I'm going to have to ask.  

Our present outside ground is nothing like 20 feet long, and at this point I'm pretty set on NOT putting that inside the slab itself unless I learn different within the next few hours.

Our grounding rod for the house was done to code--but that was 17 years ago, and of course, it's not a slab.

That's the way my thinking is headed, but I still have to find somebody to reason through the why of it for me.  I need to know I'm not doing anything stupid.     Not pulling a permit for plumbing?  Yeah, I might end up with poop in the floor.  

Doing something stupid with electricity makes me twitchy even though we wired our house.  It aggravates me that I know nothing about slabs.  It never occurred to me that electrical installation would be somehow different because my building sits on concrete.

Thank you.

Kitties is tired enough at this point (been going since 5, when we woke up to a crying cat who could not pee and with a bladder the size of a softball.)  No foundation work today.  My guy got behind.  so had to reschedule termite treatment, too.  

Got the poor, broken tree pruned, though.

Got the stub out for the power box in.

Oh good, cuz that's what I plan to do.  Nice to know what makes sense will be okay.

Ran into a commercial electrician at Lowe's today and shamelessly picked his brain.

We need copper here (@Rat_Patrol) apparently, for the rods--8 feet each, driven into the ground outside the service.

Knocked a hole in the bottom run of concrete block and stubbed out schedule 80 about 18" above the blocks.

It's relatively straight.

Pics will follow on another night when I don't have a 400 page book due Saturday morning, and the next two days taken by contractors.

You sayin' I'm a tough crowd?

Yep, I got teh separate ground part.  It's the "in the footers" part that sent me off the rails.

The regular old ground should be no problem.  Don't have a clue where I'll PUT it, but I'll figure that part out.

Not ignoring y'all, just under it.

Fill this afternoon.

Termite barrier and pour tomorrow.

Re: footers, for @handydave I think?
No rebar because it has cat hair, but not made of fiberglass.  It's made of chopped up steel. (who knew? )

billhw1-we talked expansion cuts today.  He will make several.  More to follow.  Thank you for the nudge to ask him about this.

All--at this point, I admit that I'm not overly worried about grounding.  Mostly because we have a ways to go before that happens.

I doubt I'll need any special thing to drive the rod into the ground.  I didn't with our house.  Not that it's easy, but the various size "persuaders" we own seemed to manage it.  That said, I could hit a rock or something.  Or the soil may be different back there.  Or I could be dead wrong.

We will see. But first, the pour, taking care of sick cats, and getting a book turned in before deadline. (all in same day--tomorrow.  )

I will surface with photos at some point.

We have concrete.