electrical HELP!!!! needed

I have had many clients say, " I wish I would have done it right the first time." If you ever sell your place the extra service will be a big plus. And it will give you additional flexibilty should you plans be upgraded.

Richard H. LU 481 Indy

This setup is totally adequate for me. Biggest loads are a 5 hp air compressor and a 170 amp MIG welder. Sure, a separate meter and 200 amp service would be nice, but with this setup it costs next to nothing to power my shop.

If you came off the house with another subfeed you could get the full 100 amps.

You could put in a new 400 amp meter base on the house with double disconnects, one for the house, and one for the pole building, and have a full 200 amps to the pole building, but if you have underground service this would be expensive as running new cable from the transformer would be costly.

I wanted to do this, but this cost, plus I was going to have to upgrade the house to a 4 wire feed in and outside disconnect and thus a new inside panel (you know wires never reach in a new panel) and separate the neturals and grounds. This was going to be a difficult and expensive task and leave me without power for quite a while. I opted for a second meter, with an underground feed from a overhead transformer in the yard (house feeds off a underground feed on the other side of the yard). Thus I have two power sources, and when something electrical in the house needs doing, I can shut down the house and still have electricity via extension cords.

My second meter costs me about $14 min per month but this includes some small amount of power. Power company engineer insisted it would be a commercial rate, I knew better, (he was an A**hole, just from talking to him) The woman in the business office said he was crazy and it was a residence and I would be billed at residential rates, that is how she set it up. I needed to hand dig across a septic line before power company came out. Same engineer insisted it had to be 30 inches deep, I said 24, he insisted 30 inches. I dug 30 inches and the crew came out and said he was an idiot, it was 24 inches. Soil was hard, that extra 6 inches was alot of work. Underground crew ran the underground and left enough wire to run up the pole, the next day an overhead crew showed up to do the hookup and run it up the pole.

Charles

HOWEVER if you wanna allow for expansion?? then it would be cheaper to install a seperate 200 amp service now n be done with it even if its $8 monthly minimum.

If it were mine Id opt for the seperate 200 amp service NOW n be done with it sooooo ooo you can expand electrical use at the pole barn NO PROBLEM.

NOTE if you opt to feed it from the house, I would use at least one (or even 2) wire gauge bigger then necessary to lessen the effects of voltage drop over any long run. This alllll depends on the length of the wires from house to pole barn. Ifffff real long Id opt for the seperate 200 amp service at the pole barn.

You can get by with direct burial cable (maybe a twisted underground rated triplex??) out to the pole barn with a conduit riser up out of the ground EXCEPT if you have to run under any driveways where it needs to be in conduit. Regardless which route you take Id use a service entrance suitable breaker panel at the pole barn with a main disconnect breaker and dont forget the proper (electrician will know all this) grounding and bonding out there.

BOTTOM LINE: 100 amp service fed from house CHEAPER BUTTTTT TTTTT 200 amp seperate service allows for more expansion and costs more

Your call!!!!! !!!!! BUTTTTT with the seperate service you shouldnt have to do anymore in the future !!!!! !!!!

John T retired electrical engineer

• Hobby farm

You could even use the panel in the 1st garage as a main lug panel to go to 100 amps to the new bldg. You have to be sure all your conductors and breakers are right.