Electric hookup suggestions.

[Jeff]

I'm sitting here contemplating how I will get power to the building that aint built yet. ;D

Here is the deal. I'll do it in a list.

   
• We have an older home.
• 100 amp service in the house
• 100 amp is not longer code here. it is now 200 amp, and any changes to the system require an upgrade of the entire service,
• all our breaker slots are full.
• Our breaker box and meter is on the opposite end of the house than where the building is going.
• It is probably 50 feet in a direct line from the breaker to the other end of the house, then, at least 125ft to the new building site.
• The new building is actually on our lot that is not attached tax description-wise to the house. Different tax bill. Don't know if that makes a difference in installation of a brand new service with its own meter, if I had to go that way.
• Our service here is all underground, and it ends at a transformer at the edge of our property. A long ways from the new building.

Any ideas on what I might be able to do?  I know I can call an electrician and have them figure it all out, but as always, I have no money in the budget for any of it, so have to figure out how to do it as cheap as possible on my own.

[21incher]

Depends on what you will be running in there. If it is just for lighting in the short term, a couple of solar panels and deep cycle batteries will run quite a few LED's. I run string lights in my pole barn on a Renolgy panel and 2 deep cycle batteries. A new run seems best, but the monthly service fees add up.

[OneWithWood]

When you say upgrading your in-house panel to 200 amps requires a total system upgrade what do you mean? 
Putting in a new service for the building would probably be the easier route.  The question is would it cost more or less over time to pay the service fee vs. the cost of wiring if you tied in to the house.

[Jeff]

If I pull a permit to do anything to my existing service, I have been told the entire service must be brought up to code.

[Mooseherder]

I was looking at the cost of 8/3 underground wire today for my cabin.   I need about 900 feet.  Ouch. :(
I wonder if you could run the new 200 amp service to the new building and run to the house from there?

[pabst79]

This in no way would be code legal, but IMO safe. If you have an outlet on the outside of your home, and if that outlet is fed with 12/2 preferably and is on a 20 amp breaker, I would install a weather proof junction box and run 12/2 grey cable in the ground to your new building. In the new building bring cable into a junction box and either use a small disconnect box with a 15amp breaker or a old style SSU box with a 12 or 15 amp fusetron fuse. As long as you only use the power in the new building for lighting or light power tool use you would be fine on amperage. Maybe use a 10 amp fuse instead? That way it would blow long before you overload the wiring in your home. Realize an Electrician would probably shake their head, but it will work, be relatively safe and relatively inexpensive.

Also I should mention, you would want to trace out what is all fed from the circuit in the house and make sure when the new building is in use that nothing in your existing home is drawing a lot of power at the same time. And if it does, the breaker will just trip, no harm done.

[Jeff]

Problem is, I may want to have some tools like a table saw, or even a welder out there some day. Not just a light.   You can't even run an extension cord that far without considerable voltage drop. I tried it last year for a small compressor with a cord running size 10 wire and ruined the run capacitor in the compressor.

[LeeB]

if the power company is anything like were i live they will charge you for commercial service for a shop building on a separate pole.  >:( Even at that my shop bill only runs $25 a month, but then I don't use much juice in there. bad part is it costs that every month even when I'm not there and use zero power. Part of that is payment for installing the new pole and service.

[isawlogs]

 I think you answered your own question when you said you would like to have in the futur a welder in there... It will need its own panel and electrical suply to feed all that... But....    In the mean time, while you gather around the $$ to do it, run the wire from your outdoor plug to it and at least get a plug and lights to it.... You can deal with the welder equation down the road.  ;) 

  Cross each bridge as they come around the bend     Sometimes one needs to wade the water instead of crossing the bridge.....

[Dakota]

If you have a generator, that might be a short term solution.

[John Mc]

Two things I would consider:

As someone mentioned, can you run a 200 Amp service to the new building and feed the house from that? No changes to the house, so no need to up grade. (whether this makes sense or not depends on the layout from transformer to new building to house)

Or

Put in a new 200 Amp breaker panel in your house. Feed your existing 100 Amp panel as a sub-panel of this new 200 Amp panel. At least around here, that would meet code: there is nothing that dictates your house can't be fed off of sub panels of various sizes. You save some time & hassle by not having to rewire all your existing house wiring into the new panel. Just take the feed to your existing panel and run it to the new one instead. Your new building can also be set up as a subpanel off your New 200 Amp panel

This gives you room to expand in the house, if needed. If you are not already set up for a generator feed, you can set up the new 200 Amp service with an interlock and generator breaker (usually a 240V breaker in the upper right corner).

NOTE: if there is a chance you will ever have solar PV installation, leave the lower right 2 beaker positions on your new panel open. That's where PV is usually wired in.  If you might mount PV on the roof of your new building (or near the new building, to be fed into the system from there), you should discuss with your electrician the sizing of the sub panel there. How much you can back-feed is limited to a percentage of the buss rating of the panel you are back-feeding. A panel with a 100 Amp bus rating can only be back-fed with a 3.6 or 3.8 kW inverter (I can't remember which off the top of my head). That may be limiting for you (a lot of customers here in New England are putting in 5kW or larger systems). You also may want to consider oversizing the cable feeding your new building: what meets code does not necessarily meet the inverter manufacturers recommendations. You'd hate to have to pull the wires (or worse, lay larger conduit) if you did end up putting in a PV system. (Putting in a panel with a larger buss does not mean you have to put in a larger service. It's just the bus rating they are concerned about)

PV may not be in your plans, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.  If there is a chance you'll be putting in PV on the roof of the new bulding, I can send you a recommendation for roof pitch for your area (and no, the rule of thumb that pitch should equal your lattitude is NOT the way you want to go for a grid tied system in most cases).

[Jeff]

Feeding the house from the new building would mean heavy wire running both directions wouldn't it?  The power comes from underground and a transformer 50 feet west of my house. The new building is east of my house. That transformer is the end of the line for the power on our road. No utilities go beyond me.

[John Mc]

Wasn't sure whether new building was between transformer and house or not. As you describe it, it would not make sense to feed from the building.

If you are considering my other suggestion (200 Amp panel in your house, with your existing 100A fed as a sub-panel off of that ), you can run the feed either inside your house to the other end & out, or take it out where your service comes in and run around the house (depending on your set-up, I might try the former, if you have an easy way to run it inside - like a basement or crawl space with accessibly joists - it avoids having to dig up the area near your existing service entrance).

[bucknwfl]

You will need a new service and if the transformer is not within around 200 feet they will usually install one so that it is.  For A 200 amp panel will need to be that close to limit voltage drop. But that should be on the power company

[Jeff]

THat is another problem with this house. One half used to be a garage. Slab floor. The panel box is on the opposite side of the old garage of the house, and a cathedral ceiling in the house is next to the garage, so, nothing can go through the house easily. A couple years ago I had to replace the gas water heater with electric, because of code changes that would not allow me to put a new gas water heater in the closet designed for it 30 years ago. They said I had to go with electric. (Since then, I learned I could have supplied an outside air vent and used gas, but the inspector gave me bum advice.)  Pulling wire to that closet for a water heater was an ordeal. The old box has pve conduit dict that all the wires run up through inside the wal into the attic. That duct is plum full. No room for more wire.  I had to run wire outside of the pvc into the attic. Problem there? The panel box is right in the corner on the gable end of the house. There is almost no room up there to get in and drill a whole through the wall top plate to get a wire through. Somehow I managed it, by drilling on an angle, and through a stud.  Then, was the challenge of getting across through the cathedral trusses. I did that by putting 3 inch conduit together, and pushing it across, a piece at a time. Then it was fairly easy to get the wire across.

I hate that electric water heater. It sucks compared to the natural gas.

Nothing is easy.  :-\

[John Mc]

You will need a new service and if the transformer is not within around 200 feet they will usually install one so that it is.  For A 200 amp panel will need to be that close to limit voltage drop. But that should be on the power company

That must vary from state to state. We're over 300 ft, and I see lots of new construction well over 200'. It's just a matter of having the proper sized conductors to limit the voltage drop. (If the underground conduit is big enough, I'd imagine it's a lot less expensive to just pull bigger wires than to relocate the transformer.)

[John Mc]

That is another problem with this house. One half used to be a garage. Slab floor. The panel box is on the opposite side of the old garage of the house, and a cathedral ceiling in the house is next to the garage, so, nothing can go through the house easily.

So it looks as though if you are feeding from the house, you're going to be running around the outside of the house.

Personally, I'd try to avoid having to add a whole new meter and paying the monthly fees.

[John Mc]

Don't want to keep harping on PV, but I like to plan ahead to keep my options open. Out here, it's very popular, due to higher electric rates (15¢/kWH for residential). It's not unusual for a well-designed system to pay for itself in 10 years

In case you are interested, I ran some scenarios through PVWatts for Harrison, MI. For a grid tied system, the ideal roof pitch for PV on a south facing roof is a 9:12 pitch. You lose almost nothing going to an 8:12 or a 10:12 (only 1 or 2 kWH per year).  You lose only about one percent of your output by going to either 7:12 or 12:12. (This does not include losses due to snow cover. PV panels shed snow very well, but that 7:12 pitch will probably hold snow longer than a 9:12 or more. Still, probably not a huge difference, since there is less sun in winter to start with anyway.)

You lose a bit by not being oriented straight south, but small changes are not that big a deal (aiming at 170˚ loses about 1%, aiming 200 also loses about 1% - favoring afternoon does not take as much of a hit).

The 30% federal tax credit for solar was originally set to expire at the end of 2016, but they have extended it:
30% for PV through the end of 2019
26% if installed before end of 2020
22% if installed before end of 2021
Nothing after 2021 (unless they extend it again)

I'll stop hijacking your thread now.

[DanG]

Personally, I like the generator idea someone suggested.  Even if you don't already own one, the purchase would be cheaper than any of the other viable options. A side benefit is that you would have an emergency power source too.  You could still run a wire from the house for LED lights and other small users.  ;)

[scsmith42]

Jeff, are the breakers in your 100A load center the full 1" width ones?  If so, you can get half sized breakers to swap into it to free up a pair of slots for a 240 breaker. 

Use your 240A breaker (60A) to feed an 60A panel in your new building.  I would suggest 4/3 with ground UF wire, or you can run conduit and pull individual strands through it.  The #4 size should help minimize any problems with voltage drop.

If you can't free up the space, then you can add a small sub panel off of your existing 100A panel, and transfer a pair of circuits into it to free up a 240 slot to feed the sub panel.  You can then install a new shop circuit in the subpanel along with the pair of replacement breakers for the slots that you used to feed the sub panel (clear as mud?)

Alternatively, as others have suggested you can install a new 200A service at the building, and then backfeed a 100A service to your existing house. 

Dan's suggestion of a generator is not bad unless you plan to use the shop every day.  The problems with generators is that the cost of the fuel per KW produced is much greater than buying it from the power co, so if you are in the shop a lot you will go through a lot of fuel.

[John Mc]

Jeff, are the breakers in your 100A load center the full 1" width ones?  If so, you can get half sized breakers to swap into it to free up a pair of slots for a 240 breaker. 

Use your 240A breaker (60A) to feed an 60A panel in your new building.
...

If you can't free up the space, then you can add a small sub panel off of your existing 100A panel, and transfer a pair of circuits into it to free up a 240 slot to feed the sub panel.  You can then install a new shop circuit in the subpanel along with the pair of replacement breakers for the slots that you used to feed the sub panel (clear as mud?)

I don't think he can do those options without triggering the need to upgrade the house to 200Amp service. As soon as he adds a sub-panel in the house (and probably even if he puts in the double breakers to free up space for his new building breaker) he has modified the house, and need to bring it up to code, if I understood his initial post correctly.

[Magicman]

Here, it would depend upon who was doing the doing.  The "½ breakers" that Scott referred to in Reply #19 are pricey, but that is exactly what I would do and I would do it all myself.  There would be no need for an electrical "permit".

[Corley5]

This what we used at my parents to get power to the shop   http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-QO-200-Amp-8-Space-16-Circuit-Outdoor-Main-Breaker-Load-Center-with-Feed-Thru-Lug-and-Cover-QO1816M200FTRB/202353310  and upgrade from the original 60 amp service to a new 200 on the house.  It's mounted on the outside of the house.  From it we powered the original fuse box in the basement with a 60 amp double pole breaker.  That box has since been updated to a 100 amp breaker box.  We ran power to the shop's 200 amp panel from the feed thru lugs.  It's close to 300 feet maybe more but not much less.  We used aluminum conductor underground that a lineman friend gave us  8) 8)  I forget what size it is.  No lack of power in the shop.  I've burned many pounds rod out there and there's a 220V air compressor too.  The only permit and inspection required was for the new meter base/service and the panel.  The inspector didn't need to see anything inside the house and since the shop is agricultural he didn't want to see it  ;D
  All mobile and modular homes require a flow thru panel here.  It's usually mounted  on a piece of plywood on a couple 4X4s next to the service pole along with the meter in that application.  Might be a couple of outdoor plugs mounted there too 
  I'd look at one of these if I were you.  Mount the panel outside on the house, add a new 200 amp service, run a breaker and wire to power the house panel and run wire underground to the garage outside the house and just be sure to use heavy enough wire to minimize power loss. 
  What's your power company's minimum monthly charge?  I think it's 30 or 35 dollars here even if the main is turned off  ;)   That's pretty expensive to just have lights if you're looking for something once or twice in the winter 
  A natural gas powered generator hmmm....   

[Kbeitz]

I do electrical. In this area it would cost you around $1000-1200 to put in a new 200 Amp service .
That would include one receptacle. Then it would get inspected. After inspecting you could move all the old
wires to the new box. All county's have different codes. Then you could run your wire out to your shop.

[Fundyheather]

Is there a big enough cable feeding underground to the existing panel to supply you with 200 amps in the first place?  Is there a chance we need to jack hammer our way back to the road pole?

I'm thinking switch house heat and hot water to good old oil and send all the power you got to the shop where it belongs.  Just leave enough power for a washer and dryer or there will be 'hell to pay.'

And in the meantime, you want a big weldor out there anyways, so find a significant welder/generator to run the whole shop, might as well get 3 phase for the sawmill while you are at it.  Get the oil delivery guy to diesel up the welder when he does the same at the house.  (A diesel engine vehicle would fit right in here.)

Probably solar will catch up enough to run the electrically stripped down house within 5 years.  Just move the oil barrel over to the shop and keep the same guy coming.