Main Panel for Shop

[JeffXD]

Please excuse my newbieness and lack of posts. Since joining this forum my plans of using my garage as a shop have.. well changed. We are building a new house on 10 acres. The framing should be finished today or tomorrow. A few months ago I went ahead and had my 30'x 50' Mueller building erected so I would have a place to keep tools and tractor when I was out working. Soon it will be time to start hooking up power and I need to think hard about my shop.

One thing out of the way... my shop will not be running off a subpanel. Our feeder comes off the lines at the road and then runs about 300 feet underground to our transformer. Two lines will leave the transformer.. 1 to my shop and 1 to the house. 2 meters. OK, now the house should not be needed to be addressed again.

I'm thinking I need a 200 amp panel. I have a few tools I will be using, but don't know what I will do in the future. Figure 200 amp will hold me. I want to put in 3 or 4 220 outlets off the bat... just in case.

Also plan on building a 15 x 20 "office" inside my building. Figured I would run a subpanel for that, just to keep things neat. It seems easier to run 1 conductor 30' to the subpanel than to to run everything for that room 30'.

Is there any particular panel I should look at for my needs? I want to get the panel and meter socket in place so when the trench for the house is dug my shop can be done at the same time.

Thanks!!!!

 

[astroracer]

A 200 amp panel is plenty. You have to figure just how many big draw appliances you will be using at the same time. Figure a big welder and a big compressor would have the most opportunity to be drawing current sequentially. With lights and other small draws I doubt you will ever overtax a 200A Panel.
I only have 100 amps feeding my shop from the house and I have never had an issue running the welder, compressor and maybe a lathe all at the same time.
Mark

P.S.
The power guys won't be hooking up your panel. They just run the main line and hang the meter where you want it. A certified electrician should do that job. The panel can go anywhere in the building.

 

[Highbeam]

Panels are very cheap. Changing a panel later to a bigger one is high in labor costs. Get a very large panel that can handle a lot of amps and a lot of circuits. There is no drawback to an oversized panel. If it has its own meter I would definitely get the 200 amp panel as a minimum with at least 40 circuits. This standard sized house panel will be cheap and common.

Seriously go big. You can always feed a 200 amp panel with a 100 amp service. Heck, my 100 amp subpanel in the shop is fed with a 60 amp feeder from the main panel in the house.

Bigger is gooder.