Welding in a rental house - pay for electrician or buy a generator?

As many of you know, I'm moving jobs and living in a rental house for at least a year. I brought the Rice Rod and Datsaniti projects with me, along with my MIG, TIG, and air compressor which all run off 220V. The garage of the new place is detached, with buried 110V from the house, about a 20 foot run maybe less. Plenty for lights and outlets, but no 220V.

My landlord seems pretty cool, and might be okay with running a bigger line but only if I pay for a licensed electrician to do it. I might save money by digging the trench myself, but it seems like a lot of money and effort for a year-long lease. I can imagine the electrical could cost up to $1,000 and it's not even my house.

I could also buy a used generator with over 6,000W for less than $1,000. Then I have a generator, or could sell it later. 

What about giant outdoor extension cables that I roll back into the house? 

Or just not tell them anything, install the underground conduit myself and pretend it always existed?

I pretty much need 220V somehow if I'm going to make it to the Challenge this year.

I would skip the last idea on a rental house, that might really annoy the landlord and potentially open you and them up to unnecessary liability.

Generator seems to be the most sensible idea to me and it'll probably work out the cheapest if you can buy a used one and sell it for fairly close to what you paid for it.

If you have a place to plug it in inside the house, I would make up a cord of my own. 

(Okay, I would probably tie it in to the panel or make up something that I could swap with the A/C, if I couldn't pull anything through the existing conduit to the garage, but I am an electrician, and I hate ditches)

How about a cord you can plug into the dryer outlet?

SVreX said:

How about a cord you can plug into the dryer outlet?

That's what I did in the last rental I lived in.  I made up a long cord and ran it out the window to the garage when I welded or needed the air compressor.  20+ years later I still use that cord on a pretty regular basis when I want one of the welders or the plasma cutter out in the yard somewhere.

Once you have an extension cord for your welder, you will use it all the time. Easy enough to make with SO cable and a couple of off-the-shelf plugs.

Tip: I've found that Lowes is considerably less expensive than Home Depot for cut wire right now. I haven't checked against real electrical suppliers, but it's worth shopping around.

If you recall Wreck Racing has a 25' 220 extension cable that works great.  There's 220 in the house for the dryer or something, right?

Generator is the only option that makes sense to me

I have no problems doing crazy stuff in a rental, but I'm smart about it.  I make sure its safe and reversible.

In my college apartment, the garage was the basement and the breaker panel was on the first floor.  I had no fear adding a 240v double breaker and dropping some 8/3 down the wall and added a plug in the basement.  When I moved out, I disconnected everything, patched the hole in the drywall where the outlet was and took my breaker back.

I'm not a licensed electrician, but I had a buddy who was licensed come take a look at it and he was impressed enough that I felt safe sleeping there.

I could see you doing the extension cord thing depending on how far it is.  I would put an outlet immediately beside the panel to minimize any risks and then get a long 10-ga extension cord.  RV junkyard is a good source for heavy 8 or 10 gauge SJOOW cord.

Yeah, i'd put a new 220 breaker into the main panel and install an outlet really close by and use an extension cord. There may be 220 already for oven/dryer/AC, but there are not always outlets for those appliances. AC could be hard-wired in for instance.

I've done the super long extension cable from the dryer outlet to garage trick before and it works quite well.  Welding on a generator for the most part sucks. Most newer inverter based welders are very picky about the power they get. While a generator will produce the right amount of power it's dirty power, think 3rd world power grid spikes and surges.  

I'm not an expert in the flow of electrons, just regurgitating what I read on the welding forums after we had a lot of issues getting our Diversion 165 to weld on our generator when I was in SAE Baja doing field fixes. If you have an inverter generator it should help negate this issue.

I also like the extension cord to the dryer outlet idea. It may not be ideal, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper then the alternatives and is completely transparent to the owner and you get to take it with you. For just one year I just don't see it being enough of a hassle to consider other options. Only downside is you can't do laundry and weld at the same time. That's what clothes lines are for, though.

+1 on the big 220 extension cord. I built several for work, and one for the home. About 100 bucks to do it right from an electrical supply store. Of course, I also worked for a crazy SOB who built one out of hard (non stranded) wire from Lowes Depot, and it worked well for quite a while. I do not condone that sort of behavior. I once had to wire it up to an electric drop on a jobsite in the rain to weld outside with his Miller. Hilarious.

If the stove is closer to the window/door you can run the extension cord from there also. Be sure to confirm the outlet style / type before you buy parts to make your cord, there are different ones.

Last time I went to make an extension cord for 220 it was only about $10 more expensive to buy a pre-made RV extension cord,  and the pull handles on each end of the RV cord are awesome enough to easily justify the price. 

One time in Navy base housing the easiest answer was to move the dryer and pop the plastic cover off the outside of the vent so the cord could just feed through that hole.  Usually the stove is easiest though. 

My vote is extension cord. 

I have two of them. Number 8 cords in 25' and a 50'. There are outlets under the panels in my shop, garage and warehouse. 

I don't use them much anymore, but on occasion you need 220V 75' away from the outlet. 

I think the last time it really got used was remodeling a kitchen. We moved the range to the living room and cooked in there for a couple of weeks. 

Cord, you will always use it

I run all the welders off of a 50 foot extension cord even though I have 220 in the shop.  Seems like the easy button to me.

Extension cords are on ebay for less than $100.  The real ones are actually cheaper than trying to make them up.  I try not to weld in the garage because there is a lot of expensive stuff in there.  Had the carpet flop down once when I was welding in roll cage plates and started a small fire.  Really don't want to burn down my garage, so I weld in the driveway whenever possible.  Roll the welding cart outside.  Plug in extension cord.  Good to go.

I have a bin full of cord that would need ends. Large guage stuff for 220v single phase. I can hook you up with some cheap. Nicer than the stuff you buy at Lowe's. The cord is in Lebanon I will be there Monday or Tuesday but after that I can have it in new whitland . 

I'm warming up to the cord idea. Anything specific to look for? Obviously want stranded instead of solid wire. Just search for 220V extensions and add the right plugs for each end?

And can you leave it outside does it need to be rolled up and stored indoors every time?

This is general, but it'll get you started. You want SOOW or one of the variants. That's a rubber sheathed stranded cord that's strong, tough, flexible and can be left outside. $1.50-1.80/ft at Lowes, about 50% more at Home Depot. Plugs are easy. I haven't investigated the RV options myself.

BTW, I use Cable Cuffs to wrangle mine when it's rolled up.

 Yeah, there are many good electricians.  [but only a handful of good canoers, electrical or otherwise]

BigBoss84 said:

Yeah, there are many good electricians.

^That didn't take long.

I don't have a free 220 either or a garage yet but the dryer exhaust slides right out. Keith, I'll try your Lowe's suggestion, thanks.