Long distance powerline

[wanderer]

I have a small cabin at my property. Currently it’s on occupied and we have shut the power off to it because the minimum charge for power is surprisingly high. Comes out to about 40 bucks a month, That’s if I use 0 kWh.

The cabin is about 800 feet away from my property. We are going to be doing some work there and eventually renting it out as an Airbnb property. I’ve been toying with the idea of putting in a power feed from my meter out to the cabin.

I’m aware that the problem is going to be voltage drop. I don’t currently have anything out there that draws a bunch of power but it would be easy enough to install a propane range. That would leave the biggest consumer being the air-conditioner, which probably won’t be run that much anyway.

I have figured that I could install some kind of huge to our power feed and it would probably work but I don’t think it’s worth the money to do that. What I’m wondering about now is putting in a smaller power feed and small battery bank with inverter in the basement of the other property. Solar isn’t really an option here because there’s too many trees. But essentially a solar type set up with the power feed the charger batteries coming from my house.

I’ve read through the specification manuals for inverters online and can’t find much about the power quality of the power coming in. Wooden into burger be tolerant of low voltage on the feedline?

 

[Bretny]

Solar isnt going to be any better if your running it from your house. Solar also has alot of maintenance and is going to be huge if you want to run an AC.

How much is it to run sub pannel wireing out there?

 

[Glacial_Speed]

I’m aware that the problem is going to be voltage drop. I don’t currently have anything out there that draws a bunch of power but it would be easy enough to install a propane range. That would leave the biggest consumer being the air-conditioner, which probably won’t be run that much anyway.


I’ve read through the specification manuals for inverters online and can’t find much about the power quality of the power coming in. Wooden into burger be tolerant of low voltage on the feedline?

I'm going with "would an inverter be tolerant of low voltage on the feedline" as the question.

EDIT: I think by the time you get a battery bank, inverter and low amperage line strung from your house you won't save any money over stringing a high amperage line off your house.

Don't know if it would be cheaper just to have a big propane tank for the cabin and use a off grid small home size generator.

If you're going to do an AirBnB, how's the cell phone reception? You know people will freak out if they can't check their little electronic addiction every 10 minutes.

 

[mark#3]

They make batteries to supply houses' voltages, the power company here has done it

 

[joe_padavano]

I ran 100 amp service to a shop building on my farm that is 500 ft away from the property service entrance. I used 4/0-4/0-4/0-2/0 direct burial. Voltage drop is a non-issue. I run my big MIG welder and my 7.5 HP compressor from it with no issues for about a decade now.

 

[mike93lx]

If it is viable on airbnb, $40 a month should be fine. The amount of money, time and effort it will take to run your own power 800' will take a long time to offset.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

I see no one has suggested this and im actually surprised.

Calculate all your loads, then buy 2 transformers- 480x240/120

I doubt you need very large transformers.

Run a line from your house to the cabin. Transformers go at either end along with a disconnect.

Wire size would be reduced at least half.

2 ground rods at the cabin along with a subpanel.

Now i realize you probably dont have experience with 480v, which is not a DIY voltage, so you should find an electrician to help you.

 

[mike93lx]

I see no one has suggested this and im actually surprised.

Calculate all your loads, then buy 2 transformers- 480x240/120

I doubt you need very large transformers.

Run a line from your house to the cabin. Transformers go at either end along with a disconnect.

Wire size would be reduced at least half.

2 ground rods at the cabin along with a subpanel.

Now i realize you probably dont have experience with 480v, which is not a DIY voltage, so you should find an electrician to help you.

480v on residential property? Personally, no thanks.

Besides,do the transformers end up being cheqper than upsizing the wire, especially for minimal loads?

 

[wyliesdiesels]

480v on residential property? Personally, no thanks.

Besides,do the transformers end up being cheqper than upsizing the wire, especially for minimal loads?

well just doing a WAG for 30a

need 2/0 al looking at more than $1800 just for wire probably more(i didnt add up the ground wire cost)

a pair of new 7.5KVA transformers is under $680 each and they can be found used in great condition so....

wire would then be reduced to #6al rough guess which would cost less than $500.

so savings would be few hundred if new. If used transformers and maybe find some surplus wire sold on craigslist could be a lot more money saved.

plus smaller wire equals smaller conduit and smaller trench. so theres savings in conduit as well.

 

[mike93lx]

Just thinking out loud, but 2awg at 20 amps over 800' is 6.6% drop. A small window a/c, a dorm fridge and a few lights. I would think that would be plenty of power.

MHF,no conduit, be about $1k new

I would still probably pay the utility if it is really viable as a rental

 

[Norcal]

Just thinking out loud, but 2awg at 20 amps over 800' is 6.6% drop. A small window a/c, a dorm fridge and a few lights. I would think that would be plenty of power.

MHF,no conduit, be about $1k new

I would still probably pay the utility if it is really viable as a rental

PoCo seems to be the best solution as the utilities would be a business expense for a rental.

 

[checkthisout]

You already have power to it, once you are renting it just have it turned back on as the renters will be covering the cost.

It would be foolish to spend the time and money to go from the house in order to avoid a $40.00 a month service charge or whatever.

 

[MBfreak]

A 7500 VA transformer of standard design will have a no load loss ( iron loss) of around 0,75 %, ie around 60W at nominal voltage. This is as long as it is energized, regardless of actual load.
Then there are load losses also, hard to guesstimate. They are bout 20 % higher if the transformer temperature goes from 20 Centigrade to 75 Centigrade, if winding is copper. More if aluminium winding.
Please take that into account when calculating the economics.
There are transformer with lower no-load loss ( amorfous lamination) but they are very expensive.

Ola

 

[Bigblockyeti]

It sounds like you need to model it out both ways and look at your upfront costs to run power (possibly a few different ways as stated here) and be realistic about how much it will be rented and how much $$ for. $40/mo. is the easy way out and it'll likely be a business deduction. Easy is rarely the most profitable and we don't know if you could find a screaming deal on wire or transformers or the labor to connect and bury whatever you end up using to feed the cabin. There's lots of variables that need to be accounted for. Personally I prefer to DIY as most other options are profiting others more so than myself, but I always figure out what it's going to cost me/vs. what I'm going to save.

 

[MattT]

Just thinking out loud, but 2awg at 20 amps over 800' is 6.6% drop. A small window a/c, a dorm fridge and a few lights. I would think that would be plenty of power.

20A isn't gonna leave any overhead for what the renter brings with them. And a hair dryer and electric cooking appliances are possibilities. Along with all their electronics.

IMO the cabin needs a proper load calc and the service sized accordingly. A property with "The lights flicker every time the window shaker turns on, and the main breaker trips every time I use my toaster' reviews isn't gonna do well on AirB&B.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Just thinking out loud, but 2awg at 20 amps over 800' is 6.6% drop. A small window a/c, a dorm fridge and a few lights. I would think that would be plenty of power.

MHF,no conduit, be about $1k new

I would still probably pay the utility if it is really viable as a rental

thats a pretty big drop

nec recommends 3% for feeders and 5% for branch circuits

i wouldnt run voltage drop that high especially with an air conditioner that will have in rush current causing voltage to dip even lower and maybe causing the motor to not start.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

A 7500 VA transformer of standard design will have a no load loss ( iron loss) of around 0,75 %, ie around 60W at nominal voltage. This is as long as it is energized, regardless of actual load.
Then there are load losses also, hard to guesstimate. They are bout 20 % higher if the transformer temperature goes from 20 Centigrade to 75 Centigrade, if winding is copper. More if aluminium winding.
Please take that into account when calculating the economics.
There are transformer with lower no-load loss ( amorfous lamination) but they are very expensive.

Ola

thanks. i forgot about transformer losses....

 

[theoldwizard1]

I see no one has suggested this and im actually surprised.

Calculate all your loads, then buy 2 transformers ....

Right idea but ...

A 7500 VA transformer of standard design will have a no load loss ( iron loss) of around 0,75 %, ie around 60W at nominal voltage. This is as long as it is energized, regardless of actual load.
Then there are load losses also, hard to guesstimate. They are bout 20 % higher if the transformer temperature goes from 20 Centigrade to 75 Centigrade, if winding is copper.

Just thinking out loud, but 2awg at 20 amps over 800' is 6.6% drop.

thanks. i forgot about transformer losses....

What you want to do is kick the voltage up to 480V and then use an autotransformer to step it down to what you want.

 

[The Cobbler]

I like your idea, but , at $40 per month, ( $500 per year) what is your payback going to be?

 

[mike93lx]

20A isn't gonna leave any overhead for what the renter brings with them. And a hair dryer and electric cooking appliances are possibilities. Along with all their electronics.

IMO the cabin needs a proper load calc and the service sized accordingly. A property with "The lights flicker every time the window shaker turns on, and the main breaker trips every time I use my toaster' reviews isn't gonna do well on AirB&B.

20a for each of two circuits should be plenty if this is really a cabin in the woods type place.

Amazing that anyone manages to go camping anymore.

 

[wanderer]

It’s a pretty small cottage. 840 ft.². I’m redoing the façade in stone with the big porch on it and planting a bunch of trees around it. It’s right next to my pond. Pretty cool little site actually. Cell phone signal is poor depending on provider but we will provide Internet which will allow for Wi-Fi calling.

To address the other comments, 40 bucks a month is still $500 per year. The house shares a road, landscaping, water, Internet, and possibly power with my house. I have found it to be quite beneficial to have them set up sharing things with my house because many of these expenses would be incurred either way and i can deduct a portion of them because they are used for business purposes. So to me it’s still down to 500 bucks a year and I’m already digging the trench for the Internet. There is an added benefit if the utility would get rid of their line which cross over the pond and make fishing from the dam difficult.

I have not done a power study but I think that the main loads would be a minimal amount of lighting, air conditioning, and probably no more than one major appliance at a time like a washing machine, dishwasher, or hairdryer. I also estimated 2/0 aluminum at $2000 and feel confident that it would work, but I suspect that going smaller would work fine as well. It occurs to me that The blow dryer could just be put on a different circuit from the lighting, the opposite leg perhaps. I’ve seen load shedding panels for generators before. Could something like that be use here to drop the air-conditioner out when appliances are turned on? If there’s a simple way to do it that would let me install say two gauge wire on a 30 or 40 amp circuit I feel confident it would be adequate. That would bring the cost down to about one years worth of the utilities minimum, which by the way does not seem likely to go down anytime soon.

 

[wanderer]

You already have power to it, once you are renting it just have it turned back on as the renters will be covering the cost.

It would be foolish to spend the time and money to go from the house in order to avoid a $40.00 a month service charge or whatever.

I’ve had it set up as a regular rental and no longer want to do this. Prior to now the tenants paid power but the place is tiny so unless I put a big addition on it it will always rent out cheap. I don’t want to live next to people that are living in a cheap place. That’s why am thinking about setting it up as a cabin with Airbnb. I don’t want to sell it but a house on a couple acres is worth a couple hundred thousand dollars more than an empty lot. It’s not going to cost me that much to fix this place up.

 

[checkthisout]

It’s a pretty small cottage. 840 ft.². I’m redoing the façade in stone with the big porch on it and planting a bunch of trees around it. It’s right next to my pond. Pretty cool little site actually. Cell phone signal is poor depending on provider but we will provide Internet which will allow for Wi-Fi calling.

To address the other comments, 40 bucks a month is still $500 per year. The house shares a road, landscaping, water, Internet, and possibly power with my house. I have found it to be quite beneficial to have them set up sharing things with my house because many of these expenses would be incurred either way and i can deduct a portion of them because they are used for business purposes. So to me it’s still down to 500 bucks a year and I’m already digging the trench for the Internet. There is an added benefit if the utility would get rid of their line which cross over the pond and make fishing from the dam difficult.

I have not done a power study but I think that the main loads would be a minimal amount of lighting, air conditioning, and probably no more than one major appliance at a time like a washing machine, dishwasher, or hairdryer. I also estimated 2/0 aluminum at $2000 and feel confident that it would work, but I suspect that going smaller would work fine as well. It occurs to me that The blow dryer could just be put on a different circuit from the lighting, the opposite leg perhaps. I’ve seen load shedding panels for generators before. Could something like that be use here to drop the air-conditioner out when appliances are turned on? If there’s a simple way to do it that would let me install say two gauge wire on a 30 or 40 amp circuit I feel confident it would be adequate. That would bring the cost down to about one years worth of the utilities minimum, which by the way does not seem likely to go down anytime soon.

800 feet of wire plus the fittings/breakers etc for $500.00?

And then maybe load shedding panels etc?

Pipe dreams.

 

[checkthisout]

I’ve had it set up as a regular rental and no longer want to do this. Prior to now the tenants paid power but the place is tiny so unless I put a big addition on it it will always rent out cheap. I don’t want to live next to people that are living in a cheap place. That’s why am thinking about setting it up as a cabin with Airbnb. I don’t want to sell it but a house on a couple acres is worth a couple hundred thousand dollars more than an empty lot. It’s not going to cost me that much to fix this place up.

It would be stupid to remove grid power that costs real money to install in order to spend at least a couple thousand dollars on a solution which will reduce the usability of a livable, rentable house don't you think?

All of your solutions can be rejected immediately and without consulting others simply on their financial basis within the criteria you have set.

This

 

[mike93lx]

800 feet of wire plus the fittings/breakers etc for $500.00?

And then maybe load shedding panels etc?

Pipe dreams.

Reading comprehension.

Wire is 2k, not 500. That's the utility charge.

Load shedding panel is a completely reasonable ask

 

[wanderer]

This is the reason I came here to ask. I’ve googled it and can’t find much for a load shedding electrical panel. No idea what it costs.

All I know is when I build my house I was scared to death of power drop. I have 2 4 ton heat pump’s with 15 KW aux heat for each. I installed two panels in the basement with 2/0 service to each (300’ from pole) even though the main breaker was only 200 A. All the heat pumps and other heavy loads are on one panel and the other one got more sensitive lighting and electrical devices. I was worried those heat pumps would cause the lights to flicker like crazy. At the end of the day, I have disabled the aux heat on the heat pumps and can back up the whole house on a 6KW generator with the heat pumps running. They’ve got huge breakers installed And locked rotor currents of like 80 A each. I can’t detect a measurable voltage drop even with everything in the house on at my panels.

This house is like 1/8 the size of mine. If it’s not possible I guess that’s OK but I don’t want to be super conservative and spend money every month to get nothing out of it. The back up generator is just one more reason to do this that I hadn’t even thought of until now.

 

[Falcon67]

Reminder, all expense here adds to a basis for your rental property and once you put it in service you get to take depreciation and deduct these expenses. So either way you need to stop looking at it as "$500/year" and as cost of business being a 500 deduction to offset rental income. IMHO, you'd be better off with the building having a separate identifiable power supply as opposed to a shared supply. The difference between a dedicated shed as a home office vs taking part of the house and dividing up the utilities. Once it's a rental, any trip over there is an expense. Don't leave money on the tax table.

how do you plane to send internet out there - for that distance, I'd think you are looking at dropping fiber in the trench.

 

[wanderer]

Reminder, all expense here adds to a basis for your rental property and once you put it in service you get to take depreciation and deduct these expenses. So either way you need to stop looking at it as "$500/year" and as cost of business being a 500 deduction to offset rental income. IMHO, you'd be better off with the building having a separate identifiable power supply as opposed to a shared supply. The difference between a dedicated shed as a home office vs taking part of the house and dividing up the utilities. Once it's a rental, any trip over there is an expense. Don't leave money on the tax table.

how do you plane to send internet out there - for that distance, I'd think you are looking at dropping fiber in the trench.

If it’s connected to my house part of my utility bill becomes a deductible rental expense. This is part of the reason for keeping it as a rental. Part of the Internet, water, power, gravel, fencing, landscaping, etc. become deductible rental expenses. These are all shared with my house so I can’t take all of them, but there are things I was going to do anyway. It has been set up this way as a rental property for some time and the arrangements suits me just fine. I just don’t want to live next to people that are living there full-time.


I am planning to drop fiber in the trench.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

In regards to internet, do you have clear line of sight from the house to the cabin?

If so, you could save money and time on the fiber solution by using 2 wireless point to point radios.

The particular radio you would need depends on your internet speed, wireless path interferences, etc

 

[wanderer]

In regards to internet, do you have clear line of sight from the house to the cabin?

If so, you could save money and time on the fiber solution by using 2 wireless point to point radios.

The particular radio you would need depends on your internet speed, wireless path interferences, etc

I do right now but I plan to plant trees in the fall that will obscure the view.

 

[SGKent]

I would be looking at what happens when I or my heirs go to sell someday. I also know that from what I have read, trying to proportion expenses is going to require a lot more record keeping than having two separate ledgers. What is your time worth and how badly do you want to defend yourself in an audit? Don't do your own taxes? How much more will your accountant charge you to proportion expenses than run off a separate ledger. If a realtor goes to sell your property, how to people feel about each scenario? Could you or a future owner do a lot split and sell that rental off? If so it will require a separate service. If the tenant uses too much power and causes you to reduce yours in the main house to compensate how will you feel about that? Your Honor my landlord is harassing me because I set the thermostat at 65F in summer and heat at 80 F in winter. He threatened to turn off my power. We had some light set up outside for a BBQ and he told me they were drawing too much of his power. Are any of these events possible?

 

[theoldwizard1]

Pay the POCO their $40/month and raise your rate $20/week.

Running wire from your house, is going to cost over $4,000 when you all done. Your pay back will take 100 moths or 8 years.

 

[nsula_country]

I would be looking at what happens when I or my heirs go to sell someday. I also know that from what I have read, trying to proportion expenses is going to require a lot more record keeping than having two separate ledgers. What is your time worth and how badly do you want to defend yourself in an audit? Don't do your own taxes? How much more will your accountant charge you to proportion expenses than run off a separate ledger. If a realtor goes to sell your property, how to people feel about each scenario? Could you or a future owner do a lot split and sell that rental off? If so it will require a separate service. If the tenant uses too much power and causes you to reduce yours in the main house to compensate how will you feel about that? Your Honor my landlord is harassing me because I set the thermostat at 65F in summer and heat at 80 F in winter. He threatened to turn off my power. We had some light set up outside for a BBQ and he told me they were drawing too much of his power. Are any of these events possible?

Throwing my $0.02 in.

For 800' I was thinking of a pair of xformers also. That's a long way for a power run, but not undoable. If load is only 20-30 amps, xformers will be overkill.

Was also going to suggest Ubiquiti point to point radios if clear line of sight. Fiber otherwise.

POCO issue. From a LLC owner of rental properties. It's not worth the hassle "most of the time" to deduct percentages of expenses from the "home office" accounting. You are only allowed a percentage of deductions. If you screw up and get audited, you will be fined and have to pay back restitution. I have not had this happen, but know more than 1 example.

We have 3 rentals. We pay the water meters on all 3, electric on 1. We have a 70x60 barn/shop, dedicated electric meter. All 100% deductible. Only our personal house do we pay utilities. Works out better than dividing up percentages of fees and usage.

Also, I pay an accounting firm to handle taxes. They save me more than I pay them.

CT

 

[79firebird]

$40 a month is cheap if thats there min charge i would pay it and in the winter run a small heater and summer run a small fan to move air around. keeps away the must smell as well as anything from starting to dry rot and keeps it nice in there for last minute people. inless you want to drop a fue grand. my old cabin for 4 100 watt panles , 4 6 volt batterys and a 2800 watt solar charger sinewave inverter was about 8k 8 years ago

 

[PCustoms]

Not to hijack OP, but I have a proposal from the POCO to move my feed (it is inaccessible for them to service right now and in a bad spot for me), the propose a transformer at the road and over 500' of overhead wire.

Seems like voltage drop would be a concern, they say not.

 

[mike93lx]

Not to hijack OP, but I have a proposal from the POCO to move my feed (it is inaccessible for them to service right now and in a bad spot for me), the propose a transformer at the road and over 500' of overhead wire.

Seems like voltage drop would be a concern, they say not.

work with them on a load calc. they are probably basing their assumption on normal loads. if you can demonstrate a need for something more, they may upsize.