Finished building a 900 sqft shop detached and about 12 ft. away from the main garage. I’d like to get a sanity check on my plans to wire the electrical and choice of load center for the shop. My loads are estimated at the following: 220V Band saw – 10 amps Heater - 20 amps Compressor - 15 amps Table Saw – 10 amps Welder 10amps 110V Fluorescent Lights 13 x 1 amp Garage door openers - 3 amps Grinder - 10 amps Drill Press - 10 amps Drill - 10 amps Chargers - 3 amps Vac -5 amps Saws – 2 x 3 amps Attic Vent fans 2 x 2 amps So I’m estimating a 60amp breaker in the basement loadcenter, and a run of #6 (red, white, green, bare) to the loadcenter in the shop with a main 100amp breaker acting as the disconnect. Splitting the ground and Neutral busses, and bonding to a couple of copper ground bars outside the shop, and the rebar of the foundation. I use GE PowerMark Gold 100 AMP 20-Space 20-Circuit Indoor Main Breaker Value Kit which has 5 each 20amp 120V breakers. Doing GE because the main house already has GE load centers, I had a 2” PVC conduit laid in the foundation from the garage of the main house. It’s 4 feet deep between the structures with the sweeps. If I pull the power through that conduit, can I also drop a communications (Ethernet cat5e) cable in the same conduit? Also, can I use a cable of 4 conductor #6 from the basement load center and enter the conduit to the shop from the garage? Thanks. -=Phyber

Currently there is 40A double pole in main panel sending 3 wire #8 to the garage. In the garage there is a sloppy subpanel with 2- 20A breakers. There is no ground rod driven. The lighting and the some of the outlets are all spliced inside the subpanel. The garage has many unused outlets and the only power consumed is the garage door opener. I would like to add some flood lights or a dusk till dawn on the roof of the garage to illuminate the back yard too. What options do I have? Grounding and the many splices in the box first pop out at me...