Early Planning Stages

[kcinnick]

I am looking to build a detached garage at the end of my driveway, I have room for about 24' deep and about 30' wide. I have much more room in the back, but there is some silly 25ft build line.

I was wanting a two car door on the left (when looking at the Garage) and a regular entry door or the right.

I won't actually park any vehicles in the garage (well, a fork lift one day), it will be a shop. I will eventually partition part of the side with the regular entry door off for an office, but that will be stage two of the build. I already have an attached 2 car carport with a 6'X22' shop on it, not much room to move around in there.

I will need lots of 220v power, and I am not sure about the best way to go about it. I have a 60a 220v circuit for my small shop, but I want much more than that, my home panel is 200a. Ideally I would want a separate meter and panel, but I am not sure if that is allowed.

Anyway, I am glad I found this forum, and I will browse through looking for ideas. I just need a simple sealed cube to start with, I can add extras later. I might tackle a shed project first to get my feet wet, you can never have too much storage.

 

[mmanship]

Most utility companies will want you to have a second meter installed. It will probably be expensive. New line from the pole (probably requiring burying) which will require a backhoe to dig a 3 ft deep trench. Then the meter. I have no idea what they charge for that. Where do you live? City or county?

 

[kcinnick]

City.

I have an overhead line, the power line for the neighborhood runs through my back neighbors yard, reason for the large build line.

 

[MScott]

When I built my house and detached garage I had central metering installed. The meter was placed on the pole, then separate lines run to the house and garage. Unless you need separate meters for billing (business in the garage,) this is a much simpler method if it is allowed in your area.

 

[kcinnick]

I just looked up the permit requirements, people can't really be doing what they ask for with all the structures I see around town.

Any accessory structure over 120sf must have everything done for it just like building a house, including a survey.

The drop line to my house goes right OVER where I want to build the structure, but from looking at code the meter is as far back as it is allowed to go, so it looks like I will have to stick with one meter, can I take another hot line after the meter, before my Breaker panel and run it to a panel in the new structure.

Also, looking at Deed Restrictions, I can have up to 4 carport or garage parking spaces, so I am limited to a two car garage.

I might shift to adding a garage door to my Carport and building a carport. I wonder if I could then run a panel to my former carport, now garage, straight from the utility box.

Thanks