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

 

[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...