barn wiring

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electriciangirl

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Location
Oulu, Wisconsin
I'm looking at wiring a barn for the first time in many years. I'm planning on runnin MC and I know the boxes need to be farm safe/dust proof. Any recomendations on brand or type of box/plate? I just looked up one that was around 25.00 a pop and wondering if there's something better or if that is a normal price these days.
 
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electriciangirl

Member
Location
Oulu, Wisconsin
My main quesion here is what type of box. I like to use MC. It's my preferred wiring method and that's what I choose to do. There's nothing wrong with pipe and wire. What about the boxes in a dusty, possibly corrosive environment.
 
TOOL_5150

TOOL_5150

Senior Member
Location
bay area, ca
electriciangirl said:
My main quesion here is what type of box. I like to use MC. It's my preferred wiring method and that's what I choose to do. There's nothing wrong with pipe and wire. What about the boxes in a dusty, possibly corrosive environment.
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Bell boxes. You can use FS type boxes as well, but they are going to be more expensive.

~Matt
 
JacksonburgFarmer

JacksonburgFarmer

Senior Member
Location
Butler County Ohio
EMT and set screw fittings, standard boxes will be fine....UNLESS IT IS A HOG BARN....if it is a hog barn....it has to be plastic or stainless....steel will disappear at a high rate of speed....

Now a cattle barn or sheep barn or horse barn or hay barn....EMT is great....MC is good too....ROMEX IS A NO NO....even though people do it...it is not a good idea....standard 4 square steel boxes should be fine....I recomend flip covers for receps, and toggle covers for your light switches....other than that you will be in good shape.....yes livestock urine is corrosive....but unless you mount your conduit "in stream" you wont have to worry....if it is not a hog barn.....GOOD LUCK!
 
iMuse97

iMuse97

Senior Member
Location
Chicagoland
electriciangirl said:
Is there a consensus here then that a bell box will work and fs boxes are not necessarily needed? This is just a horse barn, no hogs.
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I've done horse barns and have yet to see bell boxes. We're in horse country (south of Chicago) and did a stable for a guy for whom money was no object, (he had video and computer monitoring in the stalls) and still didn't use bell boxes. We did use sealed lighting fixtures, and we did have GFCI protection on almost everything, but EMT and 4x4s were standard.
 
iMuse97

iMuse97

Senior Member
Location
Chicagoland
electriciangirl said:
why no mc in horse stall? (I'm not planning on doing this, but why not?)
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some nervous horse do strange things. they probably can't chew through EMT but they could pull that MC right out of the fittings, etc. I always try to keep the electrical drops away from any place the animals regularly frequent. And strap, strap, strap.
 
PetrosA

PetrosA

Senior Member
Location
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
It sounds like there are options for you, so it'll probably boil down to what the owner wants to spend (read, what the neighbor has). If they're calling it a "horse barn" you can probably go low budget ;) In this area, any decent horse stable is going to be super high dollar with radiant heat in the bathing bay and heat lamps in the stalls and either bell, fs boxes or interior walls finished and switches/recepts set back in wallcases with full generator backup. Then again, it's not uncommon to see hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of horse meat walking around some of the local stables ;)
 
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