Electrical – 220 to 110 in subpanel with no neutral

electricalelectrical-panelwiring

Main service-40amp breaker going to AC unit 120' end of the house.
Closeup of 40 amp breaker and 1/4" wire
Disconnect at the AC unit
Disconnect Instructions
Actual disconnect
Inside disconnect box

BR48L Subpanel

My house is 150' long.
The main breaker box (pic 1) is at one end of the house and 2 Eaton Pullout Switches at the other end.

The pullout switches power 2 A/C evap coils (pic 3-6).
The pullout switches are fed from 40amp breakers at the main (pic 2).

I replaced 1 of the pullout switches with an Eaton BR48L box which has a 220 breaker for the ac and a 220 breaker for a well pump (pic 7).

I have a shed 105' away from these breakers. I wan to run an extension cord down there for some lights and light drill and bandsaw work BEFORE I get my main service put in to feed the shed.

I purchased 250' 10/2 UF-B wire to create a long extension cord.

My plan was to remove the well breaker and put in a 110 20 amp breaker for this new run but there is no neutral bar.

How can I get a 110 outlet, or breaker to wire the 10/2 wire to?

Best Answer

In that pico-panel, you have a major defect. You have the breakers incorrectly swapped. You have a 40A breaker on the thin wire and a 20A breaker on the thick wire. The thin wire is totally unprotected. Swap those breakers!

You are correct. Without a neutral, that pico-panel cannot support any 120V loads end of subject.

You cannot use UF-B as extension cord and I cannot imagine what you were thinking there. Being solid wire, it is not flexible like a cord must be. It is not designed to be flexed over and over. You need cordage such as SJOOW.

If one 10/2 UF-B is run in conduit the conduit must be 3/4" or larger. Nothing else can be in the conduit.

Honestly, I think your best bet is to run the proper and final feeder that you ultimately want from your main panel to the shed. I advise against having the power company drop you another service, because the power company has a new trick: they are charging people a "minimum provisioning charge" which, if you cancel service, becomes a "service availability fee". That is, they charge you for the fact that you could have a service drop if you wanted it. I now have 2 sites with 2 PoCo service drops each, and they charge us $60 a month per drop no kidding. They won't let us out of either one. So needless to say, if I have to haul power 1000' I'll feed off my existing service rather than order a new one.

Service size has no bearing on it; one is 240V/100A and another is 480V/1000A. Same $60.