MASTER ELECTRICIAN DAD TEACHES HIS SON HOW TO INSTALL A SUB PANEL!

Hey dad, I see you wiring a sub panel. How do you wire a sub panel up? Well, a sub panel is usually installed for a couple reasons. One, a new service entrance like in this application, you can see the neutral how when it comes into the top at that one terminal, you got to be careful and you have to eyeball it, right? You don't want to connect your live ear. Yeah. So, but you can see how it comes across and it shares down on either side. My grounds are actually attached to the case. I see. I see. Okay, this is coming from a solar inverter. Okay, so we needed a sub panel for that. Uh, another reason would be you run out of physical room. You just don't have enough breakers and uh a lot of guys will say, "Oh, we'll put a sub panel in which will just allow you take say a 100 amp breaker and you could connect the neutral and the ground and then you can feed it through into a sub panel. So, uh, you could either go up on the top with the main lug, you could have a main breaker. The other thing is important is to determine if you need to separate the neutrals and the grounds. Now, in a sub panel, I guess that's pretty much defined. Yes, you have to always separate the neutrals and grounds. Yeah. So, I see you got Did you uh Did you put that ground bar in yourself or was that Did that come with the panel? No. Well, it came with the panel, but I had to put it in myself. It was, you know, uh, there was like a little dimple like that dimple right there. So, there's two dimples and a screw and then there's another one on this side that has a larger opening for the main that's coming in. Got it. So, this is a one aluminum. Oh, I see. And what we did was we put on a paste. This is called no locks. It's a paste that you always use when you work with aluminum wiring. And really in the US, the only time we're working with aluminum wiring is for feeders. I see. I see. service feeders, you know, it's used a lot in these warehouses. Mhm. Okay. Aluminum MC. Yeah, I see your service cable coming in. So, I see that's your I see you got your red and your black. Those are your two hot wires. I see you got the white. That's your neutral right there. And then where's your ground? Okay. Yeah, I see it. That uh So, then here's my ground here. Right. So, you can see the neutral how when it comes into the top at that one terminal. You got to be careful and you have to eyeball it, right? You don't want to connect your live ear. Yeah. So, but you can see how it comes across and it shares down on either side. So, this is neutral. This is neutral. I see you got that ground bar, right? And what I'll do is I will dress these wires. Push these over and dress them. Now, you could come on the other side. You can dress these up. Put some tie wraps on here. So, again, sub panel. Now, this feed is actually coming from the solar inverters out in the shop. So, that's going to feed this panel. And anything in this panel is what we need to stay on an emergency. You see here, I've got my refrigerator, got the microwave, refrigerator, I got the family room outlets, I got a bunch of outlets. I'm These are all lighting. And that way, the power goes out. Yeah, that makes sense. So, those white wires, the white wires you're holding your hand right there, those are going on the neutral bar, which is This is the neutral bar. It can either go I can go on either side, but you know what? I'm going on this side because I'm wide open, right? I already did populated some on this side. Yeah. So, I'm going to use this side now. Now, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter where you go. I can put the neutral here on this screw. I could put the neutral on this screw. It does not matter. But what does matter is trying to make it as neat as possible. So, what I'm going to do is just keep my wires in the bundle. I got a lot of screws. wide open. So, it's really safe for me just to kind of fold up and make a general clip to show you the best tool ever. Which one? This one? Yes. Yeah. Racketeers. Shout out to Racketeers, man. Guys, I'm telling you, you try this. This is the bomb. Now, look, these are look like all 14 wire. So, there's like a spot for 14. It's just like butter. Yeah. That's crazy. That's nice. It is like butter. Yeah. If Racketeers, shout out to the waffle. You guys ever want to get these strippers, go to racketeers.com, use code hendy10, you get 10% off. Really? You know, I just bought them from the supply house. Oh, you can get these 10% off. So, you go to Amazon and do that or racketeers.com. All right. So, Dad, I see you now. You're you're tightening down the neutrals. Yes. So, I've made a generic cut. Look, it's not a work of art. Some guys make it perfect and use rulers. You can do that if you want to. It's not necessary. And I'm just randomly taking the wire based on size. Yeah. And I'm just musling them down. I see. I see. Now, I like to use the square driver for these. So, you could either use a square tip or a regular screwdriver. Using one hand whenever I work. Now, this is dead. This is not live, right? Yeah. Um I'm so used to just using one hand. And if you look at my posture, my position, I've got my hand. I've got plenty of torque right here ready to muscle this down. One hand. So the screws open. I got one hand. One hand. I put the wire in. And this is just a habit. Okay. I see. Grounds and neutrals first when you go in when installing a sub panel. Yes. Absolutely. Definitely. Now, normally what would happen is you'd come and all the wires would just be hanging. Yeah. So, you want to mount your panel, make all your knockouts, dress your wires in, you know, cut off all the ROMX jackets, discard that, separate your neutrals, separate your grounds, cuz even if you put them all in the same spot, as far as, you know, if the neutrals and grounds are together, they're not bonded. Yeah. Uh it's always nice to have them bundled together, right? Okay. I see. The other thing is you have to make sure there's no bonding screw. So, a lot of times there'll be a screw right here. What color is It's usually the green screw, right? It's usually green. You can put it right here. Sometimes it's on the actual bus bar. Mhm. Uh but in this case, it's a big screw. So, if I wanted this to be a standard sub panel for like uh you know, directly next to my main, make sure that that screw is out. Right. Yeah. You know, if this becomes the main, I have to put this in. I have to bond the the ground and the neutral together. Got it. That makes sense because then you can convert this to a main panel or a sub panel. Correct. So that's why that green screw is not present here. Make sure that that's out. I see. And it has to be a green screw. You know, you can't just use a tech screw or quarter20 screw. It has to be a green screw. Mhm. So sometimes you could use a Sharpie. A Sharpie some looks like green sometimes. Yeah. on a regular screw head if you need to do that. Nice. Nice. All right. So, what I need now is some two- pole breakers. Time to land the breakers in and uh we'll catch you. Yep. We'll catch you guys momentarily. Or running a wire, even if it's two wires to label it, right? And then when you uh terminate, you kind of cut that end off, save that jacket, and you can put it on the wire. See how I I think we talked about this before, but you know, these are 25 years old labels. So, no matter what happens with the cover, I know exactly what the wires are. So, that's a nice tip that you can do. And, uh, what else? Uh, leave yourself enough room. Don't make things really short. I see. Uh, make sure you separate the grounds and the neutrals that we talked about. Make sure you're at the right level. You know, the maximum height, I believe, is uh 66 in, I believe, for the top of the handle of the very upper circuit breaker. It can't be any higher than that. And it can't be lower than 18 in to the ground. You can you can put this all the way down from 18 in, you know, to the bottom of the ground. So, you got a lot of flexibility to put your panel, but it's nice to put it where you got room to work, right? Nothing is blocking. There's nothing in front of me here. And uh it's um Got it. Thanks for the knowledge. Is is the all the wires in? All the wires are in except these here which aren't. So uh I'm going to need to switch up some breakers. I'm going to have to put some tandem breakers in cuz I'm already maxed out. This is very light loads. It's just all lighting. All right, so we just got the power on. Nice. Got a couple of circuits up here. I've got one more breaker space, so I might have to put in a tandem breaker. Nice. We'll see you guys on the next one. That's how you install Well, that's how you wire up a sub panel. You got anything to say, Dad? Uh, become an electrician. You're not. It's not too late. It's a great a great field. If you're a younger person, you get older like me. Look, we're still having fun. Still poking around doing stuff. There you go. You heard it. You heard it from Man, the myth, the legend. All right, guys. See you. We'll see you later. See you on the next one from Jersey. Jersey. [Music]