Another "Electrical Plans for the Barn / Workshop" question...

[Reload5]

Curious to see what others here have done for total amount of power ran to the barn... 24 x 48 with half being a workshop enclosed and insulated here with the other half being just a parking spot for tractor, zero turn, etc.

A/C , welder, shop lights, beer fridge and deep freezer, other tools like grinder, compressor, etc will be in the workshop as well as an external 30amp circuit for travel trailer on the side of the barn.

Would a 100amp subpanel from the main house be enough or should I consider 150amp main for this barn?

 

[dstig1]

OOOO! I get to be the first to offer advice on an electrical thread! Woo hoo!

Rule of thumb - go bigger than you ever think you will need. I would pull 200A, frankly, if you can. For an extra bit of money on larger cable, you have ensured you will never have an issue (and lower voltage drop on the bigger wire, too). How much $ depends on how far you have to pull it... If it is short, it is a no-brainer, IMO. If you have to go 300', 500'+, then you may need to think about it more...

 

[MossRoad]

How much service do you have to your house?

For us, we only have 100 amp service to our house.

My garage needs are 30A max for the arc welder. Air compressor only pulls about 12amps. Swimming pool pump pulls about the same. A few lights, and that's about it. I've run the welder when the pool pump is on with no problems. The air compressor, too. We put a 50A two pole in the house box and fed a garage sub panel off of that. Fine for our needs. As mentioned, go larger than you think you'll ever need. You won't regret it.

Be cautious of a deep freezer in your garage in Texas. Its counter-intuitive. A freezer is meant to freeze stuff, yet a garage is about the hottest place I can think of in summer. So the freezer has to work extra hard to keep things frozen. Some friends of ours just lost a side of beef this summer. They had a brand new freezer. Apparently, it has a high temp shutdown. It got hot in their garage and shut down the freezer. Nice feature!

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep... the old chest freezer seem to last forever... not so much with the new stuff.

I've got 50 to the workshop... I see as it could be a problem with more than one person working at a time...

So far zero issues...

What kind of distance are you looking at and what do you have to work with?

 

[Reload5]

Thanks folks... Additional info here, this is new land we're building on and we're pulling the primary single phase from the road out to the 400' mark kind of in the central part of the land. From there, we will run secondary underground to this barn (a k a "barn #1") as well as to the site for the yet to be built main house w/ pool and also to future barn #2. Think of the layout as a "fan-out" from the transformer as three spokes all of which are about 200' - 300' from it. I've asked for > 320amps as I was thinking 200amps for the main house / pool and then 100amps per barn. I am not an electrician by any means so be nice if I am saying something wrong...

 

[CobyRupert]

.. we're pulling the primary single phase from the road out to the 400' mark kind of in the central part of the land. From there, we will run secondary underground to this barn (a k a "barn #1") as well as to the site for the yet to be built main house w/ pool and also to future barn #2. Think of the layout as a "fan-out" from the transformer as three spokes all of which are about 200' - 300' from it. I've asked for > 320amps as I was thinking 200amps for the main house / pool and then 100amps per barn. I am not an electrician by any means so be nice if I am saying something wrong...

Size it for the welder and you'll be good.

Regarding your layout: Interesting. How many meters (services)? One for all building or eventually 3?
I'm curious if the utility lets you have 1 meter at the "hub"? If so, will they then require a distribution panel (breakers) at the hub for you to protect (and disconnect) the 3 lateral cables to the buildings.

 

[Reload5]

It looks like there will be a "rack" for the meter(s) and I plan to have 1 meter for barn #1 and the main house for a total max of 400amps. If I need to exceed the 400amps (320amps max usable?) then I would need to add a second meter to the "rack" and feed those other barns, guest house, etc off of that second meter which would provide a whole different 400amps max / 320amps usable.

Do I have this right?

Oh, and I did write down that my max length of any service leg secondary run is 200' unless I want to have a little flickering of the lights when things kick on... Sound accurate or ?

 

[ultrarunner]

Will you be all electric?

My only all electric home has a 400 amp service...

 

[Cord]

Had 100a in my shop and never had a problem. Based on that experience I pulled 100a to the barn which then feeds another 60a to a detached garage. This is fed from a 200a main at the house. Again, never had a problem. This is with gas hot water and heat. If you had electric hot water and heat you would be getting close to maxing out the amp draw at the main.

You do realize that each meter will have a monthly service fee, right? The more meters, the more fees you pay.

The flickering of light has more to do with inrush amps than distance. As distance increases the wire gauge will increase so as to reduce the voltage drop. This is why longer secondary runs cost more than a primary.

 

[Qapla]

If you are having a 400 amp service at the pole (meter area) and plan additional areas where power will be used (second barn) I would think 150 AMP for this barn.

Just make sure you keep in mind when and where "bonding" needs to be done and not-done for the ground(s) as well as ground rods