Help setting 150A subpanel

[agriverbear]

I’m in planning stages for a detached shop and haven’t found a solution to my question. I want to run a 150A service to the shop. I have a 400A service for the whole house that is split by two – 200A breakers below the meter and feeds to two load centers in the attached garage. One of these load centers is virtually empty in anticipation of expansion, so I’m not worried about the power. The reason I’m trying to configure this way is the power pole is about 15’ from where the shop will sit. If I have to pull back from the house it is 45 feet, a lot of rock, and going around the power pole.

My question (s) are:

1.Can I set a new subpanel with a 150A breaker out of the meter along side the current breakers to feed the new building?

2.If no on (1.), can I get service from the lightly loaded main breaker and set a subpanel next to it? Basically what is the correct way to splice this connection, if there is such a thing?

3.If I can do either (1) or (2) should I worry with setting a breaker at the meter, or just go to a load center with a main breaker in the shop?

Thanks

Mark

 

[pattenp]

Not knowing the exact setup at the meter on the pole I will guess you can add another disconnect/breaker and feed to your shop from there.

I know you can do #2, but you just need to add a breaker in the main at the house and feed off the new breaker to a main breaker sub in your shop. Either way you only add a sub panel in the shop. You don't place the new sub on the pole or in the house. That is if I'm understanding what you have correctly.

Also do you know that you need 150A at the shop? I will guess you may only need a 100A sub service to your shop.

 

[Galaxie]

Easiest way if I understand what you want correctly is to put a 150amp breaker in the box shown, run wire from it to your new shop into the 150 or 100 amp sub box. I did this exact thing with a new shop.

For reference a 150amp Square D Homeline breaker lists for something like $400, I was lucky enough to find one on ebay for less than half that, a 150 amp box with built in breaker will be around $100. I suppose to save some money you could add a 150amp box at the pole spliced from one of the 200 amp breakers then run the wire to a second 150amp box in the shop, really redundant and not the right way IMO but would be cheaper than a $400 breaker for that box.

 

[agriverbear]

I'm suggesting setting a third breaker box with a 150 A to feed the shop. So there would be 550 A worth of breakers sitting below the meter.

Mark

 

[Galaxie]

Don't see a problem with that. More work than just adding a breaker but as I said it would be cheaper.