where to locate electrical outlets in new shop

[dale rex]

I am in the process of finishing the walls of my basement shop. I am starting with bare concrete foundation walls and insulating and building 2 x 4 walls. I want to add plenty of outlets in the new walls. How high should they be? I am thinking of around 4 ft, but I dont want the outlets to be directly in line with the horizintal drywall joint. Any higher and they might interfere with any wall cabinets I will have.And I possibly will be running my dust collector main line along the walls, so I dont want the main duct to interfere with the outlets either. Any suggestions you might have from your experiences would be helpful. I need to know how to separate the circuits,also. I have a new 24 slot, 100 amp sub panel, so I have plenty of room for any amount of 20 amp circuits that I want . How did you run your circuits?one circuit per wall? alternate outlets on diff circuits? Any ideas will be helpful........ thanks

[James Boster]

simple, put them everywhere , and your cord will still be too short . I placed mine about 48" above the floor where I would be using hand held tools and close to the floor where my stationary machines are. Do you have any 220 circuits, if you do those 24 spaces will be gone quick. I seperated mine on circuits for each wall plus lights on a different circuit. I can assure you that wherever you put them you will never have one somewhere you wished you did.

[Roger Reynolds]

I suggest slightly over 48" from floor height to bottom of outlet. this will allow sheet goods against the wall without covering the outlets.

[John Harden]

See my reply to the other guy on outlets for the shop. I placed all mine 18" off the floor. Has worked well for me. They won't ever get in the way down there, while they might at 48" off the floor. How often do you plan on leaning over to unplug them anyway?

Make sure to buy the narrow, double breakers. 24 full slots would allow you to run 48 dedicated, 120V runs if you use double breakers. For each 240V circuit you need, subtract 2 from that number of 48. Don't worry about the capacity of your panel as you'll never exceed that 100 amp breaker in the main panel. Sit down some time and calculate out how many machines you'd have to have on at the same time to even get close to that.

For woodworking shops, I prefer dedicated circuits as it offers maximum flexibility. You won't trip breakers or overload circuits and any can be converted to 240V and back again if you decide to move tools around, etc. So many of our tools, including hand tools use 13 amps or more that dedicated runs make sense. For example, you can't run an 8 amp sabre saw and and a 14 amp shop vac at the same time when they're plugged into the same circuit. Even if it doesn't pop the breaker, you're overloading that circuit.

Regards,

John

[Jerry Todd]

The best addition to my work shop was lots of ceiling outlets with retractable cords. They sure come in handy and I never have electrical cords on the floor. Just my two cents.
Jerry

[Chris Rosenberger]

I placed mine alittle over 48" to the bottom as Roger said he did his. The outlets are spaced no more than 48" apart. I also have 220 outlets spaced around the shop. I broke the circuits up by walls. If it was a long wall I made it 2 circuits. Also for machines that set away from the walls I made drops from the ceiling as Jerry did.

[Bob D.]

I'll second keeping lights on seperate circuits from tools. Then you won't be left in the dark should you pop a breaker unexpectedly with a saw blade spinning down in the dark

[Steve Cox]

Mine are closer to 42" off the floor. High enough to reach easily but out of th eway of wall hung cabinets. When I ran mine I put every other outlet on a separate circuit. If I'm running two tools I just plug them in different outlets and I don't overload the circuit.

[John Mihich]

I have a few under the upper cabinets by my work bench and at bench level. I also have several in the ceiling with short extention cords they go just above my head. I try not to have cords running on the floor; I will trip over them.

[Barry O'Mahony]

My philosophy is that it's a shop, it doesn't have to look pretty. So I just build the walls, and run surface-mount conduit. 'kind of cool in an industrial-looking way, actually. You buy another big tool, just run some new 1/2" conduit over to where it's located.

Ceiling mount reels are very useful for small tools, as other mentioned. I have one an like it so much, I just bought another.

[tod evans]

My philosophy is that it's a shop, it doesn't have to look pretty. So I just build the walls, and run surface-mount conduit. 'kind of cool in an industrial-looking way, actually. You buy another big tool, just run some new 1/2" conduit over to where it's located.
.

this was my choice also........02 tod

[John Hart]

The ones I have in the walls are about waist high....plus, a bunch in the ceiling. I like my ceiling outlets because they are never obstructed.

[lou sansone]

conduit on the outside of the wall and heights above 48" as others have said
lou

[Marcus Ward]

Mine are about 55" above the floor every 4' on all walls and the ceiling. Ceiling is really handy for lights and plugging in machines in the center of the shop.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I placed the outlets in my new shop a little over 48" above the floor. If you stand sheet goods against the wall, the outlet is still accessible.