Wiring house & shop

[Jchonline]

Not too often. And we don't freak out like some folks do when we lose power. So if a tree *did* fall on it, it wouldn't be the end of the world if we had to wait for the power company to come out.

Unless that tree falling starts a fire once it takes the power line out. I am more concerned about fires being here in CO than going without power.

 

[amaxwell]

No creek crossing, drive is dirt/gravel. There may be some concrete around the house at some point, but shouldn't affect this. Septic, garden and all water lines will be behind the house away from the power. Unless of course when I get more trees pulled out and the septic guy says the drain field will have to be in front of the house. Even then, the power will come from the side and should be away from the septic.

If you go underground, find out if they will let you use the same trench to add a couple of 1" conduits for telephone and/or cable TV or internet service . That could save a lot of expense trenching.

 

[buickanddeere]

I didn't realize I needed to be that detailed.

You have to be here as some people think ground and neutral are the exact same thing. Doesn稚 matter how many times they are told either .

 

[NTG]

Your water pressure issue greatly concerns me. Especially the part about the water district not understanding why there's a problem.

Weeellllll..... I'm not sure they don't. I asked her if they had come out to check the pressure and she said when they came out, no one was home so they couldn't check it. I asked her if both houses had a spigot outside and she said yes. I told her I thought they could connect a pressure gauge to one house, turn the water on at both houses and check it, but she said she didn't know. At least that's how I thought it worked. She owns both properties at the end of the road. One is a trailer that was added years after the house was built. I'm guessing there's some hokey connection going on that is making the picture unclear. Before I pursue adding us on to the county line, I will ask other neighbors I've met up the road if they're on county water and if their pressure is ok.

I agree with you, if you're on a municipality water system, I would think you would never know if your neighbor was using his water. I also think the Public Service Commission has regulations on what type of service you can expect out of a utility if you're paying for service. I think it's something that can be resolved with the County. I think she feels like she's just a "regular old citizen" who no one listens to and she gave up after one call and has been complaining about it ever since.

 

[MH8675309]

Our property runs around behind our two neighbors and down to the end of the road where we have a 40 x 80 pole barn. It sits at least 500 feet from the pole (on our property). I called DTE out to see what they would want to get the transformer up close to the building. For them to set one extra pole wouldve been around $7000. A 2 pole option wouldve been $11000. I asked the man if they gave free electricity for a few years included with the price and he said no thats just the cost. A diesel generator will do everything I need at this building for about 4 or 5 thousand and no bills.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Not too often. And we don't freak out like some folks do when we lose power. So if a tree *did* fall on it, it wouldn't be the end of the world if we had to wait for the power company to come out.

I'm a firefighter and on Thanksgiving we responded to a house filled with smoke. Turns out a tree fell across the power lines and disconnected the grounds but left the hots connected at the transformer. Every device in the house smoked as a result, and that was the cause of the smoke in the house. TV, refrig, oven, all were toast. The power company came and disconnected the power and pulled the meter. Would not re-connect power until everything was fixed and inspected. Last I heard all of the outlets and switches had to be replaced. Felt bad for the gal living there. She just moved in a few weeks earlier. The call came in at 4:45am and it was 6 degrees out. Her heat was electric too. Not a good Thanksgiving!

My advice is bury the power cable!

 

[LittleBill21]

Last I heard all of the outlets and switches had to be replaced. Felt bad for the gal living there. She just moved in a few weeks earlier.

there is no reason a light switch or an outlet would need to be replaced simply because 240v went through them, unless there was some kind of physical damage.

"The voltage rating is a function of a switch's ability to suppress the internal arc that occurs when a switch's contacts open. The voltage rating specified on Carling Technologies' switches represents the maximum voltage allowable for the switch to function properly at the rated current. The amp rating of a Carling switch is the maximum current in amperes the switch will carry continuously. So, in the example below the maximum amp rating for this switch at 250 volts AC (VAC) is 10 amps; the maximum amp rating at 125 volts AC for the same switch is 15 amps."

 

[Handloader109]

Guess I was lucky in MS. Built home with 200a service was 250 ft from main run and house. Then added 200a separately to my shop they had to run another pole and transformer again about 250 from road. No cost for either. Separate run to shop cost min of $16 a month which I went over a few bucks most every month.

 

[Diggin It]

I'm interested in building a house and shop on some land. I have not contacted the power company yet as I wanted to get some advice on how to route the power into my property and if I have any options available to me.

Based on another thread, you should be asking them about how they would bill for a separate meter. Some people are saying their utilities bill at a business rate which is much higher than the residential rate for their homes on the same property.

 

[strantor]

Based on another thread, you should be asking them about how they would bill for a separate meter. Some people are saying their utilities bill at a business rate which is much higher than the residential rate for their homes on the same property.

Not sure but I think you might be talking about my thread (How are you billed for non-residential electricity?)?

All this is ironic because my issue with the electrical provider happened after my first reply in this post. When I posted the quoted section below, everything was fine. The inflated bill came the next day. I'm now back to my original idea of powering the barn from the house supply, using transformers. I'm not going into the kilovolts range as I originally talked about, but the current plan is to use surplus industrial single phase transformers to step up from 240V to 480V, which will cut my amperage requirements in half (roughly, not accounting for transformation losses).

Your power company sounds way more helpful than mine! I'm actually in awe of what you just said. I tried for months just to get an answer for what power pole/meter can I needed to set, to get power to my barn. The company I pay for service (TXU) deflected me to the company who manages the power delivery (Centerpoint) who deflected me to a list of authorized consultants they use, most of which would not answer the phone or return calls, and if they did, refused to talk to anyone but a licensed electrician, and expected to be paid to come out and look before giving an answer. I was bounced around between different people on this list until I talked to my neighbor who is a licensed electrician. He tried to get a quick answer for me but it turned into something that was taking so much if his time that I felt we were approaching the boundary between friendly neighbor help and paid work so I told him not to worry about it. I ended up just taking a chance and picking one of the 5 options for power pole/meter cans they had at the hardware store and called them to run power to it. Turns out I picked the right one on the first try. Yay!



I'm not an electrician and this isn't electrical or engineering advice. Just my own thoughts. My barn was about 60ft from a power pole on my property line (different power pole than the one which powers my house), so getting a separate service ran to it was the obvious first choice. But due to the issues I was having getting the power company to confirm the requirements, for a while I was looking to run power to my barn (300ft from the house) from the house panel. To put a 200A panel in the barn would have required several dollars per foot worth of copper large enough not to run into voltage drop problems. One solution I was considering was using step-up/step-down transformers and HV transmission line. It's the same tactic the power company uses to get power to your property. To run a 200A/240V service through a 3kV transformer would reduce the transmission line requirement to 16A. That's a LOT less copper (but more expensive HV wire).

I don't know if you could convince a regular electrical contractor to do this for you, as it's not common, they would have a lot of homework to do, they would lose money on the mark-up of tons of copper they would otherwise be selling you, there might be implications on their insurance, etc. But if you're DIY'ing this whole thing anyway, this might be a way to save thousands of dollars given the lengths you're trying to get power. IF you have any electrical knowledge and access to appropriate safety gear.

First (best) option though of course would be to have the power company run poles and lines all over your property.