Wiring to shed from house question

[ultrarunner]

My brother's neighbors upgraded their electrical for a new A/C... remember my brother had 60 amp service for his 2400 square foot home...

His neighbors with a 1800 square foot home put in a 200 amp service saying this is what the electrician said was minimum...

How can two side by side homes... brother with a family and neighbors a retired couple no kids and one has 60 amp and 200 amp?

My shop that I used for years with a Bridgeport Mill, Table Saw, Air Compressor had 220 40amp... I also had a small mig welder too.

Not trying to dissuade anyone... and I do have a 400 amp panel in Washington... and my tenants complain the PSE Bill is too high.

 

[MossRoad]

My brother's neighbors upgraded their electrical for a new A/C... remember my brother had 60 amp service for his 2400 square foot home...

His neighbors with a 1800 square foot home put in a 200 amp service saying this is what the electrician said was minimum...

How can two side by side homes... brother with a family and neighbors a retired couple no kids and one has 60 amp and 200 amp?

My shop that I used for years with a Bridgeport Mill, Table Saw, Air Compressor had 220 40amp... I also had a small mig welder too.

Around here, no house can be sold with less than 100 amp service. And no new construction can be done with less than 200 amp service, as I recall.

So, you CAN upgrade your house from 60 to 100 if you want more available power.
But you MUST upgrade your house from 60 to 100 if you want to sell it to someone else.
And you MUST install 200 amp service if building new.

Many people around here will buy a dilapidated house and tear down all but one wall. That's considered a remodel. They can keep their 100 amp service and aren't required to upgrade to 200.

 

[MossRoad]

Here's a schematic of my house I found while looking around on TBN! hahaha...

 

[ultrarunner]

Interesting... the minimum for a new single family home is 100 amp with gas service...

No requirement to upgrade original service... I have pulled a lot of service upgrade permits... mostly for 2 and 3 unit buildings... typical for 3 unit is a 60 amp 220 per unit...

One triplex that recently sold for 450k... three 1 bedroom units had a single 30 amp fuse for the main... I am not making this up... the service dated from 1924 and during the WWII is was legal converted to 3 units... so one shared electric meter with 3 gas meters...

I'm always fascinated at how code requirements vary around the country...

 

[RNeumann]

It would have been FREE where I live...

I put a 200A service to/in my shop and like I said, meter and meter loop was FREE.

BTW, there's NO monthly charge for the meter either, but there is a minimum $13.00 electricity use charge, even if you don't use any.

SR

I’m hear some countries offer free health insurance too..haha. It’s definitely a “hurt me” when they charge thousands to ungraded or install new service.

 

[spokane 1]

If I have this straight:
-You have a transformer on a pole.
-From that transformer, a wire runs 190' to a meter.
-At that meter location there is a breaker box.
-That breaker box feeds your current manufactured house.

Is that correct so far?

-Is there a breaker panel inside the manufactured house, or are all the breakers for the manufactured house in the breaker box by the meter outside? (that would be weird).

-That breaker box at the meter would probably be considered your MAIN panel. Any panels downstream from it would be sub-panels. Your current manufactured house probably has a sub-panel in it. You want to add a sub-panel in your shed. You want to add a sub-panel in your future new home.

-How many amps is the main breaker in that main panel by the meter now?
If its 200 amp, you're golden. If its 100 amp, you may want to consider upgrading it to 200 amp before anything else.

-Are there any spare 2-pole spaces in that main breaker panel by the meter?

-If YES, THEN... put in another 2-pole breaker in that main panel to feed your shed.
-If NO, THEN... talk to an electrician about increasing the size of that main panel to a box that has at least 6 double pole spaces.

WHY 6??

1-feed the manufactured house.
2-feed the shed.
3-feed the future new house.
4-leaves 6 single slots open for future expansion from that box... external 110v and 220v outlet right there (handy in the yard sometimes), outdoor lighting, water feature.... 2nd or 3rd barn feed... etc... generator feed... you get the idea.

Anyhow... answer some of those questions for the crowd if you can, please.

Then, as others have mentioned.... why do you need 200 amps at the shed? And if you do need 200 amps at the shed, and 200 amps at the house, that doesn't mean you need 400 amp service. Unless you are running poetry kilns in a commercia setting, electroplating, production welding, movie lights, hydroponics garden? etc.... most people just do not need that kind of service. You'll never be running two massive welders and a glass blowing furnace at the same time... OK, knowing you, maybe you will... :laughing:

We have a 1350 square foot house with 100 amp service. Central air. 220v well pump. Freezer, 2 fridges. Gas appliances all 110v. I have a service disconnect directly below my meter. That is the main panel. That feeds 12' of wire to my house sub-panel. In that house panel there's a 50 amp 2-pole breaker that feeds a sub-panel in the garage about 75' away. From that 50 amp sub-panel in the garage I run a 15hp swimming pool pump, an 8-10 amp salt water chlorine generator, 110v bandsaw, drill presses, 110v mig welder, 220v AC/DC arc welder, etc... I've had the pool pump, chlorine generator, band saw and arc welder all going at the same time and never tripped 50 amps to the garage. And I've done that in summer with the air on and laundry going inside the house. Never tripped a breaker.

yup Moss they have 200 amp breakers.....mostly they are used to backbreak a second line out of a nema box. now weather you can bend 4-4-2 line in a tiny space and stab a 200amp backbreaker is a different question! lol......Im famous or loading up a 200 amp milbank Nema boxs with 1000 amps of breakers. LOL....some think i need Jacobs ladders at the pole.
you are correct at laughing at dol permit requirements. of massive overkill on breakers and lines. each 200 amp box can easily surge 400 amp loads.
Ive wired for 40 years and only seen 1- 100amp 2-0 line melt a box. the outdraw was 400 amps.PH welder. it still works fine today on a new 100amp box.

 

[RNeumann]

yup Moss they have 200 amp breakers.....mostly they are used to backbreak a second line out of a nema box. now weather you can bend 4-4-2 line in a tiny space and stab a 200amp backbreaker is a different question! lol......Im famous or loading up a 200 amp milbank Nema boxs with 1000 amps of breakers. LOL....some think i need Jacobs ladders at the pole.
you are correct at laughing at dol permit requirements. of massive overkill on breakers and lines. each 200 amp box can easily surge 400 amp loads.
Ive wired for 40 years and only seen 1- 100amp 2-0 line melt a box. the outdraw was 400 amps.PH welder. it still works fine today on a new 100amp box.

Can you point me to a 200a breaker that will work in a 200a residential panel? Or explain how that would work? I may learn something here.....

 

[spokane 1]

r neumann if you have a home depot within 100 miles you can order a 200 amp breaker from them. But the bar mount type only loads only 3-0 wire. The air mount 200 amp is spendy at $210 and it will accept 4-0.
best advice is start with a good 200 amp box..and look for massive breakout plugs at the base. get your permit approved with small normal breakers first and then when the inspector is at the end of the driveway pull out the big breakers and start wiring the big wire. a Milbank nema box is rated 10,000 volts your not going to melt them even with a 1000 amp draw.. all your eco-power saver appliances loads these days couldn't begin to match the old day amperage draw. In the old days you only had a 100amp box.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep... consumption continues to fall as we switch to LED for lighting in both residential and commercial... also, newer appliances often use less... but don't get me started on longevity.

I've gone into homes of relatives with 3ea 100W light bulb ceiling fixtures and replaced with 3 LED and instead of 300W it is now 40W with no complaints...

 

[woodlandfarms]

MOSS- responding to your post

I actually have 3 ground mounted transformers and our power is provide to the transformer underground. I have this out in the sticks because our road has its own water supply due to arsenic... digressing.

So, Power comes in underground to Transformer #2 (transformer #1 bottom of the driveway, 1000 feet away) It then goes up to a pole, and across our yard, around 100 feet or so, and down a pole into a meter that has large breakers. One big breaker goes to the manufacutred home (30 feet more) and into a "subPanel" wich would look like a main panel in any other house.

I think the breaker running to the house is 100 AMP Breaker but I will need to check.

Yeah, do I need 200 amps? Welder, potential baseboard heater in the wood shop (20X20 in the 50x50). Air compressor (current is a 110V 20 A, new one would love a 220) Lights? Love light but it will be all LED. I was only thinking 200 AMP due to the welding / cutting / machine stuff and maybe the baseboard for the small room, oh and a big exhaust fan to cool in the summer... No heat in the winter other than wood burning. All current tools are 110V except the welders. There are a few 3 Phase tools I can get cheap that might one day grace the shop, and would love to get a plasma table but the new house comes first.

So am I really in overkill? And no, I am not going to upgrade the house. All of this will probably get pulled up when we build the new house and the county insists on the shop getting its own meter as the house will be 500 to 600 ft away from the shop.