Electrical Wiring – Should Conductors Exiting Conduit Be Terminated or Run Between Panels?

conduitelectricalgaragewiring

I need to make a run from my detached garage to my house. The run exits the garage by way of an LB, runs underground for 25ft in 1 1/4" Schedule 40, then enters the house through another LB.

From there, the panel is another, 40-50ft? It needs to jog up a wall, run parallel along a joist, then it needs to jog back down into the basement. I'll need to drill through several basement joists that are perpendicular to get to to the main.

Originally I had planned to run 6-3 copper wire, but based on my previous post… https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/login?ssrc=head&returnurl=https%3a%2f%2fdiy.stackexchange.com%2f%3ftags%3delectrical

It's clear that running individual wires in the conduit will make more sense and perhaps using aluminum as well – I am fine with either/or.

Questions:

  1. Should I plan to run the individual conductors all the way from the sub-panel to the main without stopping? If so, what wire types could I use for that?

  2. If I don't use individual wires the entire way, what should I do? e.g. Terminate at both ends of the conduit in a junction box and switch to a different type of wire? But junction boxes can't be buried in a ceiling or wall – so that doesn't sound right either…

I'm honestly fine with running individual wires the entire length if that makes the most sense – it just raised my "spidey sense" that there might be a better way to do accomplish this…

Layout Diagram

Best Answer

It’s always better to run unspliced wires end to end. If you are in a position where you can use conduit connected to both panels without breaks and pull individual wires through, I would say that’s the best choice. It allows you to pull new wires easily in the future if you decide to increase the amps available in the garage.

In terms of type of wire, it really depends on what you’re doing. Sounds like you’re connecting a main panel and sub-panel together. What is the planned ampacity for the sub panel? Generally this is a good use case for aluminum wire. I personally would choose wire with XLPE insulation, which in the US is usually sold as XHHW or USE wire.

That’s what I’d do.

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