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

[MossRoad]

The way it was explained to me for our area, was this:

We wanted an out building, and a house. As you enter the property from the road, you have to pass the outbuilding site and the house is 150' past that. The electric company said I had to put the main service in the house, then run a wire back to the out building and put a sub-panel in the out building. That would be an extra 150' of wire. They wanted to set 4 poles and a transformer at the house. Instead, I suggested they set 2 poles and the transformer at the out building and put in a farm service panel. That would be the main panel. Then I'd run a sub-panel to the out building and a sub-panel to the house. That would save me the cost of 2 poles and 150' of wire. It would cost me an extra panel under the transformer, but that's it.

Anyhow, we had kids, the economy tanked, my job is unstable, and kids started college and we haven't built yet.... Man! That was 20 years ago! :laughing:

Anyhow, if I were you, I'd set the transformer in the most convenient place for you and put the main panel there. All other panels would be considered sub-panels off of that (houses, barns, buildings, etc...).

 

[dpb800]

We have one pole in the center of our property/buildings that the utility comes in on. On that pole is a panel with breakers for the house, barn and detached garage. I believe the transformer is rated for 400 amps. We have 200 to the house, 100 to the barn and detached garage. The house is all electric including geo for heat. We pulled 100 from the house to power the attached garage. This a arrangement has worked well for us. I've got a welder, air compressor and electric heat in the attached garage which pulls from the house and I've never had an issue.

 

[Reload5]

Will have a buried propane tank for the stovetop and furnaces but electric for all other items in the house...

I'm set to meet the electric engineers next week for a property walk, site plan share, gps pinning of where things will go, etc and will come back here with more info.

Thanks everyone for all the info - Much appreciated!

 

[dstig1]

A lot of this has to do with your state and local codes. I wanted to run the house and the shop directly from the meter on the shop. I had double lugs on the meter to do just that. I ran the shop directly from it, as it was built first. Then the inspector tells me I need to run the house as a subpanel and I was like huh? I am running from the meter, not the shop panel. I checked NEC all over the place and found nothing. I cited him chapter and diagrams showing I was correct per NEC. He then ran it up the chain to WI state code guy who said it is a state code to require a breaker on a service from another building. So I had to add a farm panel much like Mossroad described. I thought it was dumb at the time, and still do, but the call was pretty clear once he hit up the state dude. So the shop is connected to the meter, and the house to the farm panel which connects to the meter. Go figger.

My point? Check your codes and officials. I know Texas has a lot of areas with no or almost no codes, but yuo need to know if you are going to get bit before you lay in too much cable thinking "A" when the inspector wants "B"...

 

[MossRoad]

A lot of this has to do with your state and local codes. I wanted to run the house and the shop directly from the meter on the shop. I had double lugs on the meter to do just that. I ran the shop directly from it, as it was built first. Then the inspector tells me I need to run the house as a subpanel and I was like huh? I am running from the meter, not the shop panel. I checked NEC all over the place and found nothing. I cited him chapter and diagrams showing I was correct per NEC. He then ran it up the chain to WI state code guy who said it is a state code to require a breaker on a service from another building. So I had to add a farm panel much like Mossroad described. I thought it was dumb at the time, and still do, but the call was pretty clear once he hit up the state dude. So the shop is connected to the meter, and the house to the farm panel which connects to the meter. Go figger.

My point? Check your codes and officials. I know Texas has a lot of areas with no or almost no codes, but yuo need to know if you are going to get bit before you lay in too much cable thinking "A" when the inspector wants "B"...

At our house, it was like this...

Originally, the wire fed down the head, into the meter, then about 6' inside the basement into the circuit panel, and that was that.

Well, I wanted to put in a new circuit panel, because the old one was full of double breakers, with triple wires, wire nuts, splices, 26 light bulbs on a 15 amp breaker, things like that.... and we wanted to move the meter around the side of the house and I wanted a disconnect under the meter.

So, moved the head and meter base around the side of the house and put a disconnect under the meter.... guess what? That disconnect is now considered the main disconnect, so everything past it has to be treated as a sub-panel. The main breaker panel in the house is now technically not the main panel. Its a sub-panel. And I fed the garage off of that panel in the house, and it is a sub-panel as well.

I think there is also some sort of footage limit here, so that if your first breaker panel is more than X feet from the meter base, you have to put in a main disconnect under the meter, and make your first breaker panel into a sub-panel.

 

[CobyRupert]

A lot of this has to do with your state and local codes. I wanted to run the house and the shop directly from the meter on the shop. I had double lugs on the meter to do just that. I ran the shop directly from it, as it was built first. Then the inspector tells me I need to run the house as a subpanel and I was like huh? I am running from the meter, not the shop panel. I checked NEC all over the place and found nothing. I cited him chapter and diagrams showing I was correct per NEC. He then ran it up the chain to WI state code guy who said it is a state code to require a breaker on a service from another building. So I had to add a farm panel much like Mossroad described. I thought it was dumb at the time, and still do, but the call was pretty clear once he hit up the state dude. So the shop is connected to the meter, and the house to the farm panel which connects to the meter. Go figger.

Maybe NEC 230.40: "Each service drop, ....service conductors, or service lateral shall supply ONLY ONE set of service entrance conductors.

Most circuit conductors (cables) are downstream of their respective overcurrent device (fuse or circuit breaker). They are protected by the upstream overcurrent device which will interrupt current if there is a fault in that cable (e.g. when your backhoe cuts into it). Service entrance conductors (and service laterals, etc..) are special cases where this is not true. It is true that a DOWNSTREAM breaker (Panel Main) can trip and protect that cable from an overload condition, but not from a short circuit fault in that upstream cable. Thus there's more restrictions on installing service cables.

 

[LD1]

The new meter boxes our electric company is using now have the meter in the upper, locked portion of the box.

The lower portion has homeowner/contractor access. In it is slots for breakers. So you can have a house off one breaker, shop off another. THe only thing hooked to the "meter" is the buss bars.

If this is the type of box that is going to be used, I see no issues.

AS for power.....for a 24x24 "shop", and a 24x24 "parking area".....I would think 100A would be plenty. But in reality, the cost difference between 100A and 200A box and feed wiring is small. I'd probably go ahead and pull the 200A wire and get a 200A box. Then use a 100A breaker in the meter box (if that type is used) to stay at your 300A requirement.

My new shop is 40x40. Mill and lathe off a 10HP phase converter, 220v welder, 220v compressor, bout 3000watts of lighting, fridge, tv, (2) 15-20k btu window air conditioners, outlets a plenty for power tools, etc. I went 200a but have never even came close to using 200a of power at the same time.

 

[Cord]

We have one pole in the center of our property/buildings that the utility comes in on. On that pole is a panel with breakers for the house, barn and detached garage. I believe the transformer is rated for 400 amps. We have 200 to the house, 100 to the barn and detached garage. The house is all electric including geo for heat. We pulled 100 from the house to power the attached garage. This a arrangement has worked well for us. I've got a welder, air compressor and electric heat in the attached garage which pulls from the house and I've never had an issue.

In this area, the utilities are no longer allowing pole mounted meters (much less panels) for a residential service. Not saying this is true everywhere, but the trend has been that it's being allowed in fewer localities every year.

 

[WM75Guy]

Put in the largest service you can. We ran overhead down the property line 700' then went underground 100' to the pad mounted transformer. The all electric house has a 400 amp service with 175 amps feeding the stables and arena lights. The shop has it's own 200 amp service.You never hear complaints about too much power available.

Our electric coop has a $20/month meter charge plus usage. Using the 400 amp meter base saves me $240/yr which quickly paid for any additional cost of a 400 amp service vs 2 200 amp services. Also make sure they put in a large enough transformer so if you add meters in the future you won't have to pay to upsize your transformer.

 

[ultrarunner]

In this area, the utilities are no longer allowing pole mounted meters (much less panels) for a residential service. Not saying this is true everywhere, but the trend has been that it's being allowed in fewer localities every year.

Interesting at how things vary... the cabin service is still on an old Ponderosa Pine Tree... meter and panel...

Lightning hit the tree and now it is just a stump 12' tall...