Wiring to shed from house question

[LD1]

Unrelated to MossRoad- I smile and shake my head when I see folks say the price difference is only a few hundred bucks.

Smile and shake away.

I put 200a in my 40x72 shop.

To put in 109a would have saved me $150...maybe $200 max. That's a fact.

 

[plowhog]

Regarding: "I can't see the need for 400 amp service in a non-commercial setting."

I have a 4,000 sq ft residence and the large 200a panel is stuffed full of breakers with only one slot left. I am remodeling next year to a 5,600 ft residence and adding a pool. Plans already drawn, permit already obtained.

My architect said to add the garage/shop plus add a pool I was required to upgrade the main service to 400a. And the electrician said its not really 400 as you can only use 80% of rating. So at 80%, I went from 160 useable amps to 320.

(btw, my former residence was 4,856 sq ft, with three HVAC systems. It also had 400a service.)

 

[spokane 1]

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.

Woodland im just up the road from you in Amboy and yes you probably need a 200amp for future branch circuits.
the SWW dol inspector made me install this monster box for a simple 50 amp rv 20/30/50 pole. it has a 4-4-2 feed and transformer just 100 feet away.
I used a milbank 200amp 6 space box. nema exterior rated box- 2- 4x4 poles- the rv box... and tied it all down with home depot strut.
I told the inspector this monstrosity was a bit overkill for a single harborfeight trickle charger outdraw and one t-8 light. he said (well).......LOL
the transformers are great for surge (motor start-ups) but SWW is going to want massive overkill on everything.

 

[ultrarunner]

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.

Sounds like you have a plan and looking forward... the equipment mentioned requires higher capacity...

 

[MossRoad]

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.

Boggles my mind.

On our remote tree farm, we were planning on building a barn and then a house (plans changed when kids were born). The plan was to run 360' of wire on three poles to a pole-mount transformer. From the transformer to a "farm load panel". That was basically a pressure treated rack on posts. On that was a meter and main panel (waterproof). In that panel was to be a main disconnect, a 200 amp breaker for the barn and a 200 amp breaker for the house and it was 200 amp service, total. The barn was to be about 20' from the farm load panel, and the house was to be about 200' from there, much further down the drive.

It always amazes me the differences in code and common practice between different areas of the country.

 

[MossRoad]

And remember, that 200A is based on 220V. You could theoretically pull 400A of 110V if everything was balanced well between the two legs and you ignored the 80% rule. 400A... that's a lot of juice.

Of course, electric heat will draw lots of power. We don't see much electric heat here. Natural gas is king, and there is some propane in the more rural areas.

Anyhow, better to plan now than regret later.

 

[woodlandfarms]

The previous owners of our property burned the stick built house down for insurance money, taking half of it and buying meth and the other half buying our wonderful doublewide (Not bad to look at, horrifying to live in). Very good chance none of the electric is code, or was done by a licensed contractor. There are these "cash deals" electricians and who knows....

 

[MossRoad]

Oh, a fixer upper... :laughing:

The previous owner of our current home was a handy man. Not a handyman. There was one 15 amp breaker with 26 sixty watt lightbulbs on it.... every single lightbulb in the entire house with the exception of the range hood and oven light! There were so many wire nuts, splices, 3-4 wires tied together, to pigtails all leading to two wires stuffed into one terminal on one of those double-spaced breakers.... YIKES!

Pretty much the first thing we did was have an electrician move the meter to the side of the house from the back so the wires wouldn't be hanging over the roof with just 6" of clearance.

Then we had him put a service disconnect directly under the meter so I could kill power in the entire house when working on the wiring.

Next, we put in a new 100 amp box inside the basement fed from the service disconnect.

Finally, we put in a 50amp 2-pole breaker in the new box, and moved the old box feed wire that used to connect to the meter to that new 50amp breaker. That gave us 50 amps of service in the house for temp.

After that, at my leisurely pace, I installed new breakers and circuits for each major appliance in the new box, and removed the now dead circuits from the old box as I went. So things like dish washer, fridge, freezer, laundry room, air conditioner and well pump were all moved ASAP to the new box to get the load off the old box. Took me a couple days at most. After that, the only thing left on the old box was lighting and horrible, cobbled up feeds to the two out buildings.

I re-wired all the room lighting to split up the circuits, and put the outlets on different circuits as well.

One outbuilding was fed with just two wires buried in the dirt!

The other outbuilding had a fuse box in it with TWO FEEDS from the house from TWO 110v breakers combined to make 220V in that building! Yikes!

That's the one I installed a new 50amp 2-pole breaker in the house and put new feed wire in buried conduit from the house out to a new disconnect and sub-panel in the garage. I can kill the entire garage with the disconnect and work on the garage sub-panel safely. That sub-panel has a feed for the little shed, the pool pump, chlorine generator, arc welder, etc.... works great.

Anyhow, plan, plan, plan before committing to new wiring. Might want to plan for generator, too.

 

[ultrarunner]

I've never run into anything as extreme ^^^

Mostly just older homes with minimal service... thankfully, very little to no molesting of the wiring.

It was quite common here for two individual solid #10 wire to run overhead from the back porch to the detached garage... in true 1920's style...

It was one of the first things I changed after finding my tenant using the #10 feeders to the garage for a clothes line...

 

[MossRoad]

I've never run into anything as extreme ^^^

Mostly just older homes with minimal service... thankfully, very little to no molesting of the wiring.

It was quite common here for two individual solid #10 wire to run overhead from the back porch to the detached garage... in true 1920's style...

It was one of the first things I changed after finding my tenant using the #10 feeders to the garage for a clothes line...

Nice! hahahaha :laughing: