need help size of wire

Question

I'm wanting to run wire from power main box to another box to power my garage and then put lights plugs to run power tools what size wire should I use from main box to garage box it will be about 75' to 100'

Answer 1

**** Howdy partner, normally for something like this you should install a sub-panel, which is a mini-breaker box. Since you have both lights and tools, I would consider a sub panel pretty much mandatory. In the subpanel you may, for example, have one 15-amp circuit for the lights and 2 20-amp circuits for the tools, for a total of 55 amps. You could use a 60 amp sub panel or a 100 amp subpanel (which would leave room for expansion). If your "tools" are big machine tools like lathes, milling machines, large table saws, etc, I would recommend going with the 100-amp subpanel.

Because this is a long run you should use 1 size larger than normal for the wire. For example, for a 60-amp sub panel, the standard wire size is 6 gauge, but you should use 4 gauge for a long run. Likewise, for a 100-amp panel standard is 2 gauge, and 1/0 gauge for a long run.