Planning for electricity in Office

[DankDoodles]

Budget (including currency): USD (Budget unknown)

Country: United States of America / Florida

Workloads: Computer 1, Computer 2, and 3D printer.

Other details: Here are the states for Computer 1, Computer 2, and 3D Printer.

• Computer 1: Uses an ASUS Rog Thor 1200W which powers an AMD Ryzen 5900x and a TUF 3080Ti for gaming, recording, and 3D modeling.
• Computer 2: Uses an ASUS ROG STRIX 850W which powers an Intel Core i9-10900K and an EVGA 1080 Ti for VR gaming and recording.
• 3D Printer: It is a AnkerMake M5C 3D Printer which uses 350W according to the specs.

 

What's the story? Currently, the new office (let us call it the "cave") doesn't have enough power to draw from. My house is really long, and by the time the power reaches there to the end of the house, there isn't enough left over. It is so bad that I can't even use fast charging for my phone back there.

 

What is it that I am asking? I need help figuring out what to do with this power issue. What should I do to solve this power problem?
I am thinking of having the cave on a dedicated breaker, the problem is that the outlets in the cave are 14 amps and the electrician says I need 20 amps for the hardware I want to run, despite that in my current office I am using 14 amps. I hope you all understand what I am asking, it's hard to ask a question and give context to something you fully don't understand/

[Dedayog]

15 minutes ago, DankDoodles said:

Budget (including currency): USD (Budget unknown)

Country: United States of America / Florida

Workloads: Computer 1, Computer 2, and 3D printer.

Other details: Here are the states for Computer 1, Computer 2, and 3D Printer.

• Computer 1: Uses an ASUS Rog Thor 1200W which powers an AMD Ryzen 5900x and a TUF 3080Ti for gaming, recording, and 3D modeling.
• Computer 2: Uses an ASUS ROG STRIX 850W which powers an Intel Core i9-10900K and an EVGA 1080 Ti for VR gaming and recording.
• 3D Printer: It is a AnkerMake M5C 3D Printer which uses 350W according to the specs.

 

What's the story? Currently, the new office (let us call it the "cave") doesn't have enough power to draw from. My house is really long, and by the time the power reaches there to the end of the house, there isn't enough left over. It is so bad that I can't even use fast charging for my phone back there.

 

What is it that I am asking? I need help figuring out what to do with this power issue. What should I do to solve this power problem?
I am thinking of having the cave on a dedicated breaker, the problem is that the outlets in the cave are 14 amps and the electrician says I need 20 amps for the hardware I want to run, despite that in my current office I am using 14 amps. I hope you all understand what I am asking, it's hard to ask a question and give context to something you fully don't understand/

Uhm, you don't need 1200w for the first machine, nor 850w for the 2nd.

 

You're way over designing the cave.  Both machines can work fine in any normal room in any house in America.

[brob]

1 hour ago, DankDoodles said:

Budget (including currency): USD (Budget unknown)

Country: United States of America / Florida

Workloads: Computer 1, Computer 2, and 3D printer.

Other details: Here are the states for Computer 1, Computer 2, and 3D Printer.

• Computer 1: Uses an ASUS Rog Thor 1200W which powers an AMD Ryzen 5900x and a TUF 3080Ti for gaming, recording, and 3D modeling.
• Computer 2: Uses an ASUS ROG STRIX 850W which powers an Intel Core i9-10900K and an EVGA 1080 Ti for VR gaming and recording.
• 3D Printer: It is a AnkerMake M5C 3D Printer which uses 350W according to the specs.

 

What's the story? Currently, the new office (let us call it the "cave") doesn't have enough power to draw from. My house is really long, and by the time the power reaches there to the end of the house, there isn't enough left over. It is so bad that I can't even use fast charging for my phone back there.

 

What is it that I am asking? I need help figuring out what to do with this power issue. What should I do to solve this power problem?
I am thinking of having the cave on a dedicated breaker, the problem is that the outlets in the cave are 14 amps and the electrician says I need 20 amps for the hardware I want to run, despite that in my current office I am using 14 amps. I hope you all understand what I am asking, it's hard to ask a question and give context to something you fully don't understand/

 

I wouldn't argue with a licensed electrician on a matter involving their expertise.

[Needfuldoer]

Run a 20 amp circuit with 12 gauge wire, protected by either a GFCI or arc fault breaker.

[DankDoodles]

On 9/25/2023 at 1:32 PM, Dedayog said:

Uhm, you don't need 1200w for the first machine, nor 850w for the 2nd.

 

You're way over designing the cave.  Both machines can work fine in any normal room in any house in America.

So at what amperage do you recommend then?
The room isn't "any normal room in any house in America" and a new breaker is needed for this room. The current breaker goes through multiple rooms before it leads into the cave, leaving it with little power. The limit of how much power you can use in the cave is way less than how much power you can use in another room. So much so as I said in the post above, the room isn't able to even support enough power for fast charging on a phone. If it isn't enough to do fast charging for a phone, I don't think it will be enough for my other electronics connected to it. Hope this elaboration helps!
 

On 9/25/2023 at 2:17 PM, brob said:

 

I wouldn't argue with a licensed electrician on a matter involving their expertise.

The electrician I had was very new on the field. Despite having a license as an electrician, their experience and "expertise" is very limited. I called the electrician to install power to a new AC unit and to install two lights. These supposedly simple tasks ended up being VERY hard for the technician. I would go into more detail about everything they did/think wrong, but I don't want to turn this help request into a rant post.

 

On 9/25/2023 at 2:34 PM, Needfuldoer said:

Run a 20 amp circuit with 12 gauge wire, protected by either a GFCI or arc fault breaker.

Thanks for the input! I am getting recommended either 20 amp or 15 amp, though most of my previous installers are recommending 15 amps with a GFCI. I will probably go with 15 amps then since the existing wiring is configured for a 15 amp circuit and not a 20 amp circuit.

[Needfuldoer]

13 minutes ago, DankDoodles said:

I am getting recommended either 20 amp or 15 amp, though most of my previous installers are recommending 15 amps with a GFCI. I will probably go with 15 amps then since the existing wiring is configured for a 15 amp circuit and not a 20 amp circuit.

I disagree. Most of your cost is in labor, 12 gauge wiring doesn't cost much more than 14 gauge. Even if you only run "15 amp" outlets on a 15 amp breaker, if the cable in the wall supports 20 amps it should never be the weak link in the circuit.

 

(I am not an electrician.)

[brob]

2 hours ago, DankDoodles said:

The electrician I had was very new on the field. Despite having a license as an electrician, their experience and "expertise" is very limited. I called the electrician to install power to a new AC unit and to install two lights. These supposedly simple tasks ended up being VERY hard for the technician. I would go into more detail about everything they did/think wrong, but I don't want to turn this help request into a rant post.

 

An unfortunate experience. Can you hire a more experienced electrician? Unless you have a good knowledge of local electrical codes it's likely a good investment.