What size wire for 60 amps? Full Guide

You should use No. 4 AWG size for a 60 amp wire. This is the best size wire for 60 amps and 50 amps. However, with a 60 amp wire, you can go sometimes use a 6 gauge wire if it is only a short run. Use THHN or RHW type insulation.

If you are in the market for a wire that can handle 60 amps, then i would suggest this 4-gauge wire from GEARIT on Amazon. You will receive 50 feet each of black and red Copper Clad Aluminum CCA wire.

What Is the Correct 60-Amp Breaker Wire Size?

Use a 4 AWG wire for a 60 amp breaker. Wire gauge is very important. Resistance will trigger the wire to get too hot when the optimum current level for which the breaker is ranked passes through it if you try to use wire that's too small of amperage. If that happens, a fire might be started and you really do not want that to happen. On the other hand, a heavy-gauge wire is tough to deal with, hard to link/connect and have a high cost. Be sure not to use too much of an oversized wire.

If you plan on purchasing a 60 amp breaker, take a look at this breaker on amazon. This is one of the only products i have seen with a 5 star rating on amazon.

What is ampacity?

Ampacity is defined as the total amount of current that a cable or wire can carry safely. You can think of ampacity as the maximum amount of current that can flow for a given wire size with temperature and voltage drop at the limits.

Do not judge wire size by length alone. The longer the run, the greater the distance between your panel and subpanel, or load location to subpanel, will require larger conductors. You have to take ampacity serious and choose wire size accordingly in order to avoid larger voltage drops.

The ampacity tables do not cover every possible combination of wire, temperature, and voltage drop. The values shown are for clean, dry conditions. They assume the conductor is properly supported at intervals not exceeding 30 ft (9 m). They also assume that the insulation on any non-CMP cable remains intact and free from damage or defects that would render it liable to failure under maximum load conditions.

What is gauge?

It is very important to understand what gauge means: It is not the size of the conductor (i.e., its physical dimensions). Rather, it reflects only the amount of electrical current that can flow through it safely under certain conditions, conditions such as operating temperature, operating voltage and the type of insulation.

Most electrical conductors are insulated in some manner to prevent an electric current from passing through them directly. An insulator must be used because the flow of electric current tends to heat up the conductor as it flows through, which can melt or damage it. Since the size of a material's cross-section is often important in determining how well it performs this function (i.e., how much current can safely pass through), we have a word for that: "gauge."

WIRE SIZE AMPACITY CHART

60 amp wire size

In order to use 60 amps, a 4 gauge wire is required. But, if you plan on running the wire over a short distances then you can use one of 6 AWG.

We all use appliances and electronics everyday. Here are some of the most common electronics and appliances that we use daily along with their wattage and amperage.

Copper vs Aluminum Wires

Want to know the wire sizes of other amperages? Visit some of our other pages below.

• Wire size for 100 amps?
• Wire size for 200 amps?
• Wire size for 400 amp service?
• 200 amp panel upgrade cost
• Installing a 50 amp rv outlet
• 30 amp wire size

1. Conduit

Also called "Schedule 80" or "Ovally", this is a conduit that uses an oval shape to provide the internal volume of the piping. These are most commonly used for power and lighting circuits.

2. Armored Cable

Normally a copper clad steel wire, this is the most common type of wiring found in residential and commercial buildings. This is also referred to as "Type THHN" or "THWN". It has a thin poly-vinyl outer layer with a thick high-density black matrix armor (rubber). It is generally rated between 600v and 1000v d.c., but can be more depending on it's application. Similar to the way that there are different types of conduit, such as rigid metal and flexible metal, there are two types of THW: Standard and Loose tube (armored).

3. Cables

This category covers larger type wires, usually intended for underground placement. Usually grouped along with other designations so that it reads something like this: THHN/THWN or THW/THWN-2 etc.

4. Conductor Wires (AWG)

Designates American Wire Gauge size, which is used as a standardized unit of measure for electrical conductors. This is the American standard, so to speak. It is used in North America and Japan. The lower the gauge number, the larger the AWG and thus its diameter.

5. THW/UTP

Sometimes referred to as "armored" cable depending on it's application. Similar to the way that there are different types of conduit, such as rigid metal and flexible metal, there are two types of THW: Standard and Loose tube (armored).3) Romex: Known commercially as " UF-B Wiring ." This category includes a variety of cables used for residential wiring applications. The most common type used for home network wiring is RG-6 .

6. Flexible Cords

Rubber covered wiring commonly used in household appliances such as vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers.

7. Cat-5

This is becoming obsolete because of its limited bandwidth capabilities (200MHz). It also has a relatively high signal attenuation due to plain wire and 4-pairs in the cable, as opposed to 8-pairs of RG-59/U used in analog TV coaxial cable line which has less attenuation. As such, it was always better to run a dedicated line for each device or if that was not possible, then to power the devices via an APC or Powerline. Nevertheless, Cat-5 remains popular if you need to plug into a network hub that only has ethernet ports and does not support wireless connections.

8. Cat-6

This is intended to eventually replace Cat-5 , but so far this transition has stalled. It doesn't have all of the limitations of Cat-5 (e.g., it can go up to 500MHz) but there are still relatively few deployments in which it is used over fiber optic lines or RG-59/U coaxial cables because its increase in bandwidth comes at great cost to long distance transmission distances vs. Cat-5 and the expense of installing Cat-6 cabling compared to using Cat-5.

9. Romex

Known commercially as "NMD", it consists of a black rubber outer sheath with copper conductors (or aluminum if you are fortunate to find some) that are twisted. It is only rated up to 150 volts, so be careful not to confuse this with the other types listed on this list. Unless you're going to be strictly using a system that will not exceed 150 volts, then this is not the best choice for you.

Using wrong wire size for your breaker.

There are so many different things that can happen when you use the wrong wire size for your breaker. If you use a wire size that is too big for your 60 amp breaker, not much will happen except having to pay a high price for said wire. On the other hand, if you use too much of a small wire for your 60 amp breaker, then there are so many things that can go wrong.

Conclusion

Knowing what gauge wire is right for your next project is crucial. Hopefully you have done the necessary research before taking on any type of DIY or hired a professional. Above i went over all you need to know about using 60 amps.