How many amps of electrical service do I need for a garage workshop in Moncton NB?

For a proper garage workshop in Moncton, you should plan for a minimum of 60 amps of electrical service, with 100 amps being the better choice if you use any serious power tools, welders, or plan to add an EV charger or electric heater down the road. The right answer depends on what you plan to run simultaneously, but undersizing your electrical service is one of the most common and expensive mistakes NB homeowners make when setting up a garage workshop.

A 60-amp sub-panel will support a basic workshop with a table saw, a compressor, a dust collector, lighting, and several 15-amp and 20-amp general purpose circuits. This is adequate if you are a hobbyist woodworker who runs one major tool at a time and does not plan to heat the garage electrically or charge an electric vehicle. However, the moment you add a 240V welder (which draws 30 to 50 amps by itself), a Level 2 EV charger (typically 40 amps), or a 240V electric garage heater (20 to 30 amps), a 60-amp panel runs out of capacity fast.

A 100-amp sub-panel gives you the headroom to run your workshop tools, heat the garage, charge a vehicle, and still have capacity for future needs. In the Moncton market, the cost difference between installing a 60-amp and 100-amp sub-panel during initial construction is only about $500 to $1,000 — a fraction of what it costs to upgrade later after drywall, insulation, and finishes are in place. For a detached garage, the major expense is the feeder cable run from the house panel to the garage sub-panel. A 100-amp feed to a detached garage 30 to 50 feet from the house typically requires #3 or #2 copper wire or #1 aluminum, run underground in conduit below the frost line (4 to 5 feet deep in Moncton), and costs $2,500 to $5,000 installed including trenching, conduit, wire, the sub-panel, and all connections.

To calculate your actual needs, add up the amperage of everything you might run at the same time. A typical garage workshop load breakdown looks something like this: general lighting and outlets at 20 amps across two circuits, a table saw drawing 15 amps on a dedicated 20-amp circuit, an air compressor drawing 15 to 20 amps on a dedicated circuit, a dust collector at 12 to 15 amps, and a garage door opener at 5 to 8 amps. That baseline load is roughly 70 to 80 amps if everything ran simultaneously, though in practice you would not run every tool at once. Add a 240V heater at 20 amps or an EV charger at 40 amps, and you can see why 100 amps is the sensible choice for any workshop that goes beyond the basics.

Moncton's climate makes electrical planning especially important. With winter temperatures regularly hitting -20 degrees Celsius and a heating season that runs October through April, many workshop owners end up wanting electric heat — either a 240V forced-air unit heater (typically 4,000 to 7,500 watts, drawing 17 to 31 amps at 240V) or infrared radiant heaters that warm objects and people directly without heating the entire air volume. If you install a 60-amp panel thinking you will never need heat, you will almost certainly regret it after your first winter trying to work in a freezing Moncton garage.

All garage electrical work in New Brunswick requires a permit and must be done by a licensed electrician. This is not optional — unpermitted electrical work creates fire risk, voids insurance, and must be corrected before selling the property. A qualified electrician will also ensure your sub-panel is properly bonded and grounded, that all receptacles have GFCI protection as required by code, and that your feeder cable is sized correctly for the distance between the house and garage to avoid voltage drop issues. Need help finding a licensed electrician for your garage workshop? Find contractors through the New Brunswick Construction Network at newbrunswickconstructionnetwork.com.