Sparky Time

So I finally found the breaker panel. It took me a bit because I'm not used to seeing it integrated with the meter in the same box, and also being outside. California is weird. Anyway, it gave me an excuse to start mapping things out a little, and the first up was the mystery 240v receptacle in the garage, which showed equal likelihood of being connected or abandoned. It was also being held up by a piece of rope, rather than being properly secured to the wall.

Turns out it is hooked up, which is nice. Figured out the breaker, printed a color-coordinated label, secured the outlet to the wall, and tightened up the conduit. Only trouble is it's an obsolete NEMA 10-30R, which has two hot and one neutral, and is (technically) ungrounded. The good news is that since this is a dedicated line to the main panel the wiring for hot-hot-neutral and hot-hot-ground is actually identical, so I can just get a new box and 6-30R outlet and I'll be ready to hook up a welder and give myself a really painful sunburn.

Oddly enough there seems to be an unused 30a 240v circuit in my panel, which is puzzling. The good news is that it should make it super simple to add a subpanel in the garage when the time comes to add some more outlets in there, either sticking with the 30a or bumping up to a 40a or 50a depending on how the loads calculate out. But that's a project for another day.

I also started working on a small repair/upgrade to my wardrobe to reinforce the leveling feet at the front of the unit. Waiting for some glue to dry right now, so the remaining work on that will come tomorrow.