Hey all, I've been doing my best to research as much as I can but I've been finding a lot of dissenting information on the internet (who would have thought?)First up: Here's my (hopefully decent) diagram: http://ift.tt/2m8agqi: I'm a ME by study. I'm a recent homeowner and I'm trying to learn/do as much as I can. Electricity is a bit sketchy to me, but i want to learn about it so I can feel comfortable doing seemingly easy projects like this one. I may be better off hiring this out, but I'd prefer to do this myself. I'm planning on pulling a permit and having the town come inspect it all when I'm finished.also note: for code purposes, I'm in MichiganHere's the situation: I have a detached garage that currently has 15A Service running out to it from the house, through (what I believe) is a metal conduit. I only know this because I can see where it comes out of the house in a metal conduit, and then comes up out of the ground and into the garage.In the garage currently, where the electric service comes in, is a stacked box (two metal boxes ontop of each other it looks like), with a GFCI outlet (always hot) and a switch. The switch controls two ceiling light fixtures (basic screw in fixtures). One of the fixtures generally sits empty, and the second has a screw-in outlet, that runs the garage door opener. I've been told that's sort of a no-no/is against code.I opened up the box, and there are some odd things, but it generally looks OK (there are a few wires that were cut and are still living in the wire-nuts). The one thing that was a bit odd/confusing, was that the ground wire on the outlet was wire-nutted back into the neutral line. My outlet/GFCI tester told me that it was "correct." Is that standard?Here's what i'd like to do: I'd like to rip out basically everything after the electrical comes into the garage. I'd like to wire up 4-5 outlets between the wall and the ceiling for plug-in LED shop lights, and a few small tools (maybe a compressor down the line). Ideally these would be downstream from a single-pole switch. I'd also like to branch off, where the electric comes in, and wire up a separate branch for the garage door opener that would be always-hot (see the picture below).From my research, it would seem that I would be OK to do this (power-wise) but I may start to touch the high limit if I run a compressor with the lights at the same time that i'm running the garage door.Now that I've given probably too much detail, here are my questions:I'm planning on using 14ga cable. Can I use Romex? Per code, I'd run a risk of wire damage so I think I need to run it all through conduit. I've read/heard that running Romex through conduit is either against code OR discouraged. If that's the case, what sort of wire should I use: BX? UF? Metal Clad? What of that needs to be in a conduit?I know house code is to have an outlet every 6 feet. Since this isn't a dwelling, am I OK to only have outlets sporadically? (the garage is only 15x20, so it's doable, just not something I really want/need to*I don't know how kosher the current ground situation is, and I'd like to make it a bit better. Assuming I leave the metal box attached to the conduit coming in from outside (or put a new metal box in), can I ground to that? Is it a silly assumption to say that I can ground to the metal pipe that goes, well, into the ground? or is it sketchy since that's going through wood (garage) and back into the house later (I'd imagine it'd ground before getting back to the house).Thanks!edit: I dunno how to change the flair on the post! sorry! via /r/DIY http://ift.tt/2l3Vxvq
