How I wire a panel (an in-depth tutorial)

so today we are going to be cutting in this huge panel there's about 80 circuits in here which may make it one of the larger panels I've ever cut in so I'm going to take you guys along today

and show you some techniques I use and basically just how I do my panels and hopefully you gain something from it and wish me luck because we're gonna be here a while music is

playing and we're ready to get started so the first thing I'm going to do is reroute all of these wires behind the drain pipe up there thank you

so one column is going to be the left side of the panel and the other column is going to be the right side of the panel and this way I know it'll be a balanced panel same amount of breakers on each side a lot of people think that

this is a longer way to do it but this will actually make it way easier and faster once you get those wires in there you know where they go you know what side they're going to and you don't have to think

so now that I've tallied up the amount of wires that are going to be on each of the panel I'm going to go ahead and separate them evenly foreign so this is something I do on like every

single one of my panels I dig a ground wire under a screw and that way I can tie off my wires okay next up it's time to strip the

wires I always strip them before putting them into the panel because it's easier so hopefully there's no angry people coming at me

so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna strip the wires and when we pull our wires we actually write what they are so this one says Powder Room entry lights

so I'm going to strip it and then re-label it with the tape so that when I'm inside the panel I know what is what the only wires that I'm taping are the ones that going under the breaker so

this wire for example is a 14 2 red has a red and a black so this is a 240 volt circuit I will be taping both of these wires together with the label stating what it is here I am just using

my client tools dual function strippers to make a clean cut so that when the wires come in the panel it's all going to be straight across nice and clean

so this wire here is labeled basement receptacles so again what I do is I just write the same thing here basement

receptacles however this is an arc fault breaker so I'm going to be taping the black and the white I need to go get a new knife blade this

is like the dullest knife I've ever worked with better so I'm just going to summarize what I said in case it wasn't clear enough every single wire that is

going under a breaker will have tape around it if there is more than one conductor that is sharing a breaker tape those wires together

[Music] then I'll get to this side after foreign I'm using two screw connectors just because I find them a bit easier for

larger panels it was a smaller panel I would use 4040s [Music] now that all these wires are in here imagine trying to strip those wires in the back

so that's exactly why I strip it before going into the panel I've never done literally um so if a murder happens here one day I

might be called up because my DNA is all over this panel okay so now it's time to separate all of your bonds from the rest of the wires

so as you can see this is how I'm organizing them these wires are going to go directly back towards the back corner so I'm unweaving them from the other

wires in a way that will allow them to do just that this panel is not currently live the main breaker is off however one of my bond wires slipped underneath the

cover where the feeders are and this happened I'm alive so what I'm going to do now is put all the bonds under the bond plate

or Bond bar the way that I shape my bonds is I take my hand I run it down forming this new shape you guys have seen this before in

my videos so basically I'm just gonna do this now towards the back of the panel it's going to stay there and then I will 90

it into under one of the screws now if you're one of those guys that doesn't use an impact in the panel I would highly recommend putting your

mitts on for this part foreign a lot of people might ask why am I confident working in this panel especially after that big

you know you saw it um and what I like to say is if you understand electricity you're confident working around it like I understand how it works so I know

exactly what would happen in certain situations so I'm prepared it is also important to check and make sure that nothing has been damaged inside the panel so I did take that

cover off and luckily it didn't hit any of the lugs so we are all good to go all right next up neutrals now we went at the beginning and we taped all of our

neutrals that are under the Artful Breakers so we're going to pull everything that's not taped and then it goes under the neutral bar foreign technique to smooth out the wires and

force them towards the back corner of the panel straight enough for the Plumber's eye now I am just installing all of the breakers I usually try and keep the same Breakers

together so all of my arc folds are at the top and then I go 15 20 30 40 50. so

one of the most common questions I get is why do I put these little morets on the end of my hot wires and that's because if you take a look

the house is not finished so these switches are not on nothing is on nothing is installed so um but this panel is live

if I hit this main breaker on it's gonna light up these bus bars and if you turn all of these breakers on it's the whole house is going to be live so that's not very safe um

a lot of people say why don't you just lock out takeout I don't do that because I do use some of these as templux so that's the reason so as you can probably tell I don't

dress the wires that are going under the breakers the same way that I do my neutrals and bonds instead of doing a Sharp 90 I like to

put the wire towards the back of the bundle and then I pull it up creating a small loop on the side of the panel the reason I do this is just to leave some slack for future if you need to

move that breaker around or if something happens and you need to strip some more wire it's there it's accessible and it just makes it so much easier

so now I'm just finishing up the right side of the panel the same way that I did the left side um I hope you guys enjoyed this video let me know if you have any questions I

will try and stay active in the comment section and here it is all completed ready for that panel cover to cover it up so that no one will ever see it except for maybe

an electrician