I'm trying to figure out which option I want to use to handle this little situation, before the wife divorces me for not getting it done. We have two single gang boxes with 15 amp receptacles on the front of the house. They are currently both on a 20 amp circuit, wired up with 12/2 NM-B into a weatherproof "wet location" metal box. The box is set into the siding and not on top of. The receptacles are grounded to equipment ground, but the boxes themselves are ungrounded. The boxes are covered with "wet locations with covers closed" type covers. I want to add proper GFCI protection and in-use covers for safety, mostly for the holiday season when lights are plugged in all the time. Here are the problems: 1) Each box has its own separate run from a J-box in the basement, so if I were to add GFI receptacles I would have to do it at each box. I can't wire up a downstream device. 2) The metal boxes have a hole for a ground screw, but my ground screws won't thread in. First time I've had that happen :wall:. 3) The charming individual that did the previous work left me about 2 inches of wire to work with in the box. :wall: 4) Even with so little wire left, the current boxes are too shallow for a GFCI receptacle to fit properly :wall:. So I'm considering three options: 1) Start fresh with a new box, new cable run, new everything. 2) Replace the breaker with a GFCI breaker to protect both outlets, add an in-use cover, and try to find a place to attach a grounding pigtail with a clip in the metal box. 3) Add a weatherproof box extension and a new GFCI receptacle. Will still have to find a place to attach a grounding clip, and may have to splice the existing conductors to then be able to reach the new receptacle. Not sure. Thoughts? I guess I'm leaning towards option 1, despite it being more work. Thanks in advance!

Im looking to run a little better wire out to my garage, currently the garage is fed via knob and tube in the air to the garage. Other then the lights dimming when my compressor turns on everything has seemed fine until I picked up a new table saw. Even though it does power the saw, I know I'm overloading the feed wire. The house has a 100a panel with a few opened slots still, I was recently given a large roll of wire that has printed on it Cadillac 4 THW Aluminum and was wondering if this would be suitable to run from my main panel to a sub panel in the garage. If so I would want 3 wires to the sub panel, and add an additional ground rod outside the building as well? I don't have much need for 240v in the garage so I am more or less concerned with upgrading the 120v to the point where I know I am safe with standard power tools and lights and not worry about overloading. But since I have this huge roll of wire, how many wires would I need to pull for a 120v240v sub panel? My garage is only about 25ft from the house and from the panel to the garage would probably be about 50ft, also is this wire suitable for direct burial? Thanks in advance