I stand by my post. This stuff is dangerous. Your statement was incorrect as it stood. If you are going to give bad advice and say “read a book to get the right advice”, why bother giving the bad advice?
Imagine this scenario: Our original poster reads your advice, “The correct gauge of wire depends on the current it will carry.” Then he goes to the reference book as you suggested. He finds the table that says “A 50 amp load requires 6 gauge wire”. He doesn’t read the rest of the book which tells him that he must derate the amperage because of the length of the run or the size of the conduit he is using. So he uses 6 gauge instead of the correct 4 gauge (for example) and the wire heats up and the house burns down.
Was your advice correct, but incomplete? Or did it burn his house down?
It is obvious that the original poster doesn’t understand this stuff at all (no offense meant to the OP). We need to discourage him from doing this. If he insists on going ahead with it, he needs the best information we can give him. I only wanted to point out that he was not getting the whole story. I believe it is more important to keep him alive than to worry about hurting anyone’s feelings.
StinkPop: I think you may be exaggerating the situation a bit. Just about anyone can do home wiring with a good refrence book and a lot of common sense. As an example, when it comes to wire gage, I always abide by the conventional ratings for “standard” runs (12 AWG for 20 amp, 14 AWG for 15, etc.), and I go “up” a gage for “long” runs. At any rate, the OP is probably capable of doing this job himself, assuming he does some research outside the SDMB.
He is doing research, and so far he is getting it wrong and he is getting some bad advice. It would be one thing if he were asking “How do I add a new outlet off of an existing outlet in my room?”, but he is talking about opening up his main panel and doing things he doesn’t understand. When he makes a mistake he will hurt himself and/or his house. You and I have done this stuff for years and understand it. He doesn’t know the first thing about it. If he continues doing research and runs his full plan by someone knowledgeable, he’ll be okay. If he does his research, thinks he understands it, and goes off by himself to do it he will possibly fry himself.
What’s wrong with looking out for your fellow man?
I could help you do this correctly, safely and to code, but it would take an entire page on this message board to walk you through the entire process. There are soooo many variables and code specific details it`ll make your head spin.
I`d be happy to answer any questions you have. If you decide to do it yourself we (the SDMB) might as well help you do it correctly and safely. But, I would recommend you get at an electrician to at least help out or get you started.
No, my statement was correct as it stood - the correct gauge of wire does depend on the current it will carry. Your point is that it also depends on other things, such as the length. That is also correct, and not contradicted by what I said.
If I had said, “The only thing you need to consider is the current to be carried” your objection would be valid. As I did not say that, and indeed added that a reference should be consulted, your objection is not valid.