200 amp disconnect

[bigby]

Had the light company come by and look at the best way to run power to my garage, they said the best way would to put a 200 amp disconnect beside my meter and run 100 amps to the garage and the other 100 amps to the house. They were in a hurry to leave and I was half awake from him waking me up a few hours from when he was suppose to be here ( I work nights), do I just buy a regular 200 amp disconnect or do I have to have 2 100 amp breakers in it?
I figured they would of just had me put a 200 amp breaker box in my house and run the subpanel off it. Thanks for any help.

 

[pattenp]

What's in the house now? Why did they tell you to run 100A also to the house? Is the house under construction?

 

[bigby]

The house has 100 amps now, I'm upgrading to 200 amp service. I'm not sure of what kind of disconnect box he is talking about, I should of asked.

 

[pattenp]

I assume you will have a 200A meter. If you are upgrading the house panel to 200A I would think coming off the new 200A panel with a 100A feed to the garage would be the thing to do. Can you do a larger meter and double tap the meter with 200A to house and 100A to garage?

 

[pattenp]

I believe this is what the power co guy was suggesting. You could have two 100A feeds off this panel.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...ping-_-googleads-_-pla-_-202276309&ci_gpa=pla

 

[bigby]

That must be what he is talking about. Thanks!!!!!! He said the disconnet will have a series of breakers in it. He did not say anything about upgrading my house breaker box so with this disconnet I think it should work.

 

[pattenp]

Oh.. that make sense now if you are not upgrading the house panel to a 200A panel. You are just adding the 100A for the garage.

 

[sberry]

There are a lot of possible ways to do this, I prefer to add more than 4 spaces while I am going thru the effort, that disconnect is cheap, its a bargain. Something different may cost a few dollars more to get the optimum configuration, maybe main lug feed thru with 8 spaces, can feed well or other buildings etc without having to get back to house or garage panel.

Adding a new service you have a chance to get it right, move and improve if it makes sense. Give options for future use etc. I did an upgrade recently where the owners first thought was to replace,,, I move to end of house and relocate the panel, use old as sub, put on end of house fed underground where it belonged. Allowed for all additional new loads to be from new panel and reduce the demand on the sub.

 

[sberry]

One of my buds has his nephew, a licensed journeyman put a new service in, they replaced the service panel but needed a disconnect added because of its location, paid some astronomical price for a 200 disc, way should have put a different panel on, way way, it was adequate and code passable but poor basic design. could have made life easier and cheaper with the same effort.

 

[Aceman]

If your service is old I'd look at installing a 200 amp metermain combo. It'll have a set of feed through lugs, where you can take 200 amps straight into the house or you can install two 100 amp breakers and feed the house/shop that way.

Remember, if your existing house panel comes straight off the meter but will now be fed from another panel, you will need to run 4 wires to it as well as seperate your neutrals and grounds. You'll also need to move your grounding electrode conductor(s) to the outside panel since it's now your service disconnecting means.

 

[SuperSocket]

It might be just a normal disconnect that you split to your two panels which would have main breakers in them since your collective load is 200A.

 

[SuperSocket]

I believe this is what the power co guy was suggesting. You could have two 100A feeds off this panel.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...ping-_-googleads-_-pla-_-202276309&ci_gpa=pla

Would you not need a main disconnect and then disconnects to each of your panels (or the sub disconnects on your panels)? I don't think they want the home owners to have multiple disconnects from the utility as there would be no protection from the utility to this panel (bus will always be hot and unprotected).

 

[bigby]

I bought a 200 amp metermain, I figured it would be better than having two boxes on the side of my house and not have to deal with the conduit between them and bonding them. .
I live in a small town in Missouri with no inspector so I want to make sure I got this right. The metermain would be the first panel from the meter and the house and detached garage will be like subpanels with four wires going to each, the metermain has the neutral and ground bonded with the sub panels unbonded.
I will have to increase my ground wire going to my ground rods to #8 for the 200 amp metermain and use #6 gound wire to the rods on the 100 amp panel in the garage.
I'm using 2-2-2 alum. feeder wire going to the garage with a #6 copper ground wire.
I have to bury the conduit going to my garage 18 inches deep, I'm feeding the garage feeder wire under my house, does it have to be in conduit too?
I work in maintenance in a large facrory and about all we deal with there is 480 volt 3 phase and 24 volt going to the drives and controlers, so I'm trying to learn about120/240.
Thanks for all the advice. Brian

 

[pattenp]

For the electrode grounds I'd use all #6 copper. The #2 AL feeder to the garage at max can have over current protection of 90A. My opinion is to run 2-2-2-4 Mobile Home Feeder to the garage, I wouldn't intermix copper with the aluminum. Individual wires run under your house need to be in conduit. You can use a large junction box and transition to SER cable for the inside, SER doesn't need to be in conduit.

Mobile Home Feeder

Service Entrance (SER)

 

[bigby]

Thanks Pattenp, I was looking at that wire last night at Menards, I will go with that all the way to my garage.

 

[pattenp]

If you want the full 100A you need to use #1 AL. But I don't think the MHF comes in #1 or #1/0 so you'd need to get the 2/0-2/0-2/0-1/0. I think it also comes in 2/0-2/0-1-4.