200A Meter Pedestal

[MFortie]

Does anyone know if there's a 200A meter pedestal with an interlock kit available?

Looking to underground a service (currently O/H) and eventually feed two structures w/ 100A each (house & shop) along with a outdoor convenience outlet/lighting circuit (near our horse shelters).

The idea is to have a inlet (30A) for a portable generator and interlock for when our power is out.

I have a electrical contractor (neighbor's son) helping me with this project and already have my permits and service order from the utility. The permit is currently for undergrounding to one house -- the shop feed will be future along with the generator connection.

I'm just doing a little research to anticipate any future work.

And just for reference, right now everything -- house, well pump, water tank dist pump, and shop are fed from the single 90A O/H service to the house. And I have yet to trip the main! (Running AC in the house, 5HP compressor, lift, tools, etc.) Guess I've been lucky!

 

[wyliesdiesels]

by pedestal do you mean a meter main installed in the ground, separate from the structure?

Ive never seen an interlock come with a panel, but you can definitely purchase a brand specific kit that is listed for use with the brand of panel

 

[Bert_]

You're not lucky, you don't have as much load as you think you do. You can run a ton of stuff from 100 amp service. 200 is very rarely needed but the price usually isn't much more than 100.

 

[MFortie]

by pedestal do you mean a meter main installed in the ground, separate from the structure?

Ive never seen an interlock come with a panel, but you can definitely purchase a brand specific kit that is listed for use with the brand of panel

Yes, meter main separate from any of the structures. I'm locating it about 10' +/- from the transformer pole.

 

[MFortie]

You're not lucky, you don't have as much load as you think you do. You can run a ton of stuff from 100 amp service. 200 is very rarely needed but the price usually isn't much more than 100.

I know. My neighbor (electrical contractor who's son took over the biz) tells me 200A is a '****-load' of power. I originally was looking at a 320A service, but he talked me out of it. I'll end up with 100A at the house and 100A at the shop.

We actually have (2) houses on the property along with my 2400 sqft. shop. The 'back' house has it's own service & meter.

 

[nadogail]

I got along fine with a 100 Amp Service for maybe 30 years then we added Air Conditioning, an Induction Cooktop and an Elevator. Our next car will probably be Electric.

I conservatively estimated the 85 amps available to the house would soon be pushed to its limits. We also have solar panels.

 

[dcg9381]

I have 320A service, but the cost to put it in over 200A was nominal. The shop is on a 90A circuit, that circuit powers a hot tub, refrigerator, 2 inductive cooktops (small), 4 tons of AC, a 50A RV connection, a 1.5 hp water pump, and a host of accessories.

200A is a lot of power. I think you need to start looking at it when you get into massive homes (4000 sqft+) that are high draw electrical use due to HVAC etc.

Things to watch out for, that might take the average home owner over 100A:
* Inductive cook tops
* Electric dryers
* Electric tankless water heaters
* EV hook ups (these can operate nominally at over 40 amps continuous)
* Pools/big water pumps/large hot tubs