wiring a 6x12

[yycwrangler]

Couple of posts in a row. This one is regarding 110volt. I want to have a couple of plugs towards the rear of the trailer (ramp style) and midway for some kitchen appliances. Then one on the outside (AC probably up high). Are most people using the ronex type wiring or just regular home wire. What about outlet boxes. Have you found ones that can recess into the walls which are already thin (I believe about 1-1/2 with plywood).

And lastly, when your running your wiring, especially as my boxes will be about 24" off the ground mostly (maybe a high outlet for the AC) etc. do you run your wiring along a seam between the ceiling and walls (from the front where my panel will be). And then drop your writing down to each out box and again back up to the ceiling and along to the next location and drop the wire down to the next outlet box. In houses we would just drill out a hole in the wood stud and run the wires between each outlet but with a steel framed trailer you can't do that. And it seems like it will be a lot of wire length/cost if I have to run it along the top of the trailer, drop it down the wall to the outlet, then back up to the ceiling and along to the next outlet.

Suggestions.

Finally are most running around 5-7 outlets per fuse, and perhaps separate for home window AC and maybe outlet outside. Will use ground fault in system

Cheers
Al

[m.colley]

I used romex in my build for the 120V side but if I had it to do all over again I'd run stranded.Romex doesn't bend real well.
I have one exterior receptacle on drivers side at the ramp door, two interior receptacles on the same wall, two receptacles in the v-nose/kitchen area, and two exterior receptacles on the door side, one front, one rear.

I got my thin wall boxes at home depot, their 1-1/2 thick which worked considering I built up the thickness of my walls, its hard to find anything much thinner then that.

Yes I routed most of my wiring in the gap created between where the ceiling and side walls meet. I pretty much run my wiring as you described. I've got mine run on 4 circuits, two 15A & two 20A circuits. My interior receptacles are 15A, exterior are 20A. The AC circuit is 20A. The kitchen & exterior circuits are on GFCI.
I used weather proof covers on the exterior receptacles.


Martin

[McDave]

I don't see any problem with using 14-10 ga cord for A/C outlets, max runs will only be 15-20 ft. Drill and drop, grommets and smurf tubes, ties and anchors, leave some slack and strain relief. At least 12 ga on air cond. and 20 amp circuits.

McDave

[AnthonyH]

My local electrical supply house had mobile home plugs that were built into boxes that were about an inch deep.

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[troubleScottie]

Not say this is needed, there is UF-B cable, a outdoor cable, which is meant to be buried. Obviously resistant to water, etc. Slightly less flexible than romex ( NM-B) and harder to expose the wires. It might be more resistant to abrasion. Others can chime in on this.

One might consider only doing home runs eg all the way from the electrical panel to the outlet. Less things to break - and if one fails, none of the other outlets are affected. A spool of wire is $50 for 250 ft. Once everything is sealed up, it is very difficult to get to.

Use GFCI outlets and/or breakers. Also covered outlets for the external outlet eg 1-Gang Horizontal or Vertical Mount Weatherproof Expandable Low Profile While in Use Cover (try saying that in one breath). They are more expensive, but you are not installing hundreds or trying to make a profit. Think like you using 120 AC soaking wet in a puddle which are going to do every once in a while.

[lrrowe]

I wrote a detailed response and then got all thumbs and hit wrong buttons on my iPad and deleted it all.

So I will redo my thoughts in a condensed version. I agree with what the posters mentioned above.

If I were to wire the CT again, I would use 12ga only for my AC and the rest would be with 14 ga, maybe even dropping the breakers down to 15 amp on many circuits.

I used thin boxes which were a pain to wire and push the outlet back into the box. And it gets worse as you put multiple boxes on the same run. I would use larger boxes and somehow build frames around them. Many of the posters in other threads have made some sweet looking box covers.

The truth for me is that I would only dislike the box sticking out into the open space the first times it is spotted. After that, II would just get used to it and not worry any more. Sort of like that first small dent in my new TV. After a few thousand more miles on it, I don't even notice it anymore. "Stuff" happens in life.

[flboy]

I did what Bob has suggested... I used 14ga on 15A breakers. I have a 20A Main with a 12GA input. Given the AC only draws 4.9A and the microwave is 750W (used very little if at all)... not much else in the way of high power usage going on. No problems running a 1000W ceramic heater if I wanted to.

The 14ga is much easier to use than 12Ga because it is more flexible... and as you know.. less expensive.

I took apart a donor camper to build mine and it had 14ga almost exclusively except for the input (30A) service inputs and the 13,500 BTU AC... they just put 15A breakers on the lines. You can't go wrong if you do that.

[Mike S]

For what it's worth, in my CTC I've tried to stay as close to residential code as possible, but often it wasn't practical to be strictly to code. I read on hear that Romex doesn't do well in high vibration situations. So I used stranded copper wire housed inside automotive conduit (I'm thinking about replacing this with PVC conduit, which is more secure and per code). I used 12 gauge stranded copper on all my 15 and 20 amp circuits.

With CTC's you need to be creative on cable runs and outlet placement. My cable runs are all within the structure of my kitchen and bedroom "furniture", meaning there was no need to run cable through the thin walls. I think if I needed to run cable along an exposed wall, I would use galvanized or PVC electric conduit on the surface of the walls (inside the trailer) in favor of trying to run something behind the thin walls and through the bulkheads. For outlet boxes, I didn't try to recess them in the walls. I left them popping out of the walls.

[yycwrangler]

Hi Everyone

Thanks for all the feedback..So from what I'm reading, most folks are using a standard stranded wire to run the 110volt (as opposed to the rolex which has the metal casing around it and is hard to bend around corners).

I'm actually thinking of perhaps just doing what I did in my garage and using standard 3 wire and running it through electrical conduit and leaving my boxes sitting out as opposed to try and inset them in the wall (something like this http://www.rona.ca/en/device-box-weathe ... -2-0320619 or https://az849230.vo.msecnd.net/images/m ... 0S_PCS.jpg)

reasoning is that I can run the conduit a couple of feet off the floor, and parallel to the floor along the full length of the trailer as opposed to having the line go along the top and drop down and back up at each box. I can paint the conduit to match the wall and hide a some of it behind cupboards, beds etc. As for the boxes as someone suggested. You may see them sitting there the first couple of times but after that they'll just blend in especially if painted the same color as the wall and a nice wood finish around them

Thoughts
Al

[Padilen]

I just added additional wiring. I used a 15 amp 14/3 extension cord. But I ran it inside of white PVC pipe. My walls are white and it's less noticeable.
I did use the outdoor "grey boxes but with white front plates it doesn't look bad. I used 1/2 but should have(?) used 3/4 in one run.
The other interior wiring is 12/2 romex well hidden, before I "finished" my build, and then it wasn't .


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[nunrleft]

I used Marine Grade wiring for my CT build. It's stranded, so flexible, and water resistant. https://www.amazon.com/Ancor-Marine-Gra ... V2AWM?th=1
I used 12 gauge on 20 amp breakers for all my outlets and A/C, and 16 gauge for all of my D/C wiring. Better to overbuild than underbuild.