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I have an air compressor and it's portable but I pretty much keep it
in the same place in the garage. The outlet is on top of my bench but
the cord always falls down behind the bench and is a royal pain to
fish it out. I have considered clamping it with a romex staple to the
wall or something like that, but then I cant move it without removing
the staple or some sort of screw clamp. Rather than doing that, I
thought about installing a double box with an outlet and a switch to
turn off that outlet. That way it will remain plugged in unless I
move it, and all I need to do is flip the switch on or off. My
question is whether a standard light switch will handle the motor
load. It's a 1/2 HP motor on a 20A circuit. I did also consider
adding another breaker and just turning on and off the breaker but
that box is not the easiest to get to since there are shelves in the
way.

Your air compressor doesn't have an on-off switch mounted on it? Every
portable I have ever used has had one. For what you are describing, I would
go to a real electrical supply, and get a commercial-rated machine switch,
the kind with the green and red buttons, and put that upstream from a 20A
outlet. Yeah, a typical light switch would probably work under light-duty
use, but the real thing is a lot safer, and usable for other stuff like
table saws if you or the next owner want to run one of those. And it Looks
Cool.

aem sends...