Oh No!!...Not another electrical question.

[bigvic]

Alright I hope I am able to describe what I have in mind to do with the new house/shop that is in the works so that you guys can understand and hopefully point me in the right direction.

Background info:
New shop is built and the wife and I are going to live in it while we build the house. The shop is too far behind the house to mount the meter to the shop (electric CO says no), but the house isn't built yet, so I must mount the meter to a remote mount which will be a 20' pole where overhead service will come down through the meter and then underground service to the house and shop.

On my plan layout I have picked out a meter location that is pretty much equidistant between the house and the shop (about 100' to both). The Elect. CO gave me a list of specific meter sockets to use which none are a combo meter socket/disconnect switch, but I must also have a disconnect installed after the meter. So that leads to my question on how I should wire this up. I am going to use a 320 amp meter socket and will have a 125 amp panel in the shop and at least a 200 amp panel in the house. That being said what exactly do I need to put on the pole? I am assuming the meter socket, followed by the main disconnect, and then is there a way to split up the amps I called out above after the main disconnect with additional disconnects going to each location? If so, could you point me to specific products?

I realize that the easiest way would be to have a main panel in the house and run a sub-panel off of it to the shop, but in this case that wont be possible. I also kicked around the idea of a temporary pole, but we are going to take our time building the house (at least a year), and I would rather permanantly wire up the shop now instead of rewiring it later.

Thanks for your time reading through this novel and I appreciate any and all responses or different ideas. One thing I would like to add is that I do intend to hire an electrician to at the very least look over my work. Right now I just want to get a plan together and find out how much it will cost to do this.

Also I almost forgot...Will the 100' runs to the house and the shop cause a huge noticable voltage drop or will it be too minimal to matter? What would be the maximum distance that I should consider?

Victor

 

[Junkman]

You will install a meter socket on the pole, and then have a master disconnect under the meter socket. Then you will go into two more disconnects... one for the house, and one for the garage. Why not have the electric company go from there pole to where you want to put the meter in all underground service? Looks nicer than having a pole in the yard. I would make a electrical panel that consists of 2 4" x 4" pressure treated poles in the ground and have a 4' square pressure treated plywood screwed to that. The meter socket and master disconnect can go on one side of the board (street side) and the two other boxes on the other side of the plywood. You can also go to any established electrical supply house and ask them to have one of the manufacturers quote on how much it would cost to have it made up as one box. We used to do this with office building construction. Too bad that you couldn't use a 200 amp meter socket and disconnect. I have one that I removed when I did a upgrade here. It is a Milbank, a respected company in that end of the business.
Make sure that whatever you are buying is approved by the local utility. Today, some utilities want a meter socket with a bypass inside. This is why I had to upgrade mine when I did the addition, otherwise, I would have just reused it.

 

[bigvic]

Why not have the electric company go from there pole to where you want to put the meter in all underground service? Looks nicer than having a pole in the yard. I would make a electrical panel that consists of 2 4" x 4" pressure treated poles in the ground and have a 4' square pressure treated plywood screwed to that. The meter socket and master disconnect can go on one side of the board (street side) and the two other boxes on the other side of the plywood.

Thanks for the reply junkman, this is what I wanted to do originally, but our house will be about 235' from the road centered in the property with the power co pole on the front corner of the property. The Power co rep said that going underground the whole distance would cause too much of a voltage drop using a standard pole mounted transformer. He said that it could be done using a surface mount pedestal transformer, but that is very expensive, and I have to bear some of the costs to have this done, so that option is out. So what I am looking at is overhead service for the first 180'-200' going up the side property line using two poles, the second being my drop down pole. From there it will cut underground for the next 100' to the house and the shop. Doing this will keep the pole and meter somewhat away from the house, and it will be in a spot where I can camouflage it with some bushes or small trees.

 

[bmwpower]

I'm about 300 feet off the road. My service is underground and I have a pole mounted transformer. No problems. The only thing I had to pay for was the extra distance. If I remember correctly, it was something like $700.

 

[bigvic]

One more question about my proposed setup. If I install the meter with a main disconnect and then two sub-disconnects for their respective service panels at the remote meter location, will I need to also have main disconnects at the service panels themselves? Or, Could I use the disconnects at the service panels and just split directly off of the main disconnect at the remote meter location? I feel like having two disconnect for each panel is redundancy, but for the shop leg of the service for example; would going directly from a 320 amp disconnect 100' downline to the 125 amp panel disconnect offer enough protection? The service line will be in conduit 2' below grade.

This location is in the country, so I have no codes that I must follow, but for insurance reasons I will go by the NEC. I plan on digging into the NEC tomorrow and trying to find out everything that I can, but I was hoping that you guys could enlighten me before I do so.

Thanks
Victor

 

[Junkman]

You must have a disconnect at each point of origin where the wire goes underground. This is the code requirement. I suggest that you contact the people at the link that I provided and ask them for advise for a panel. They know both the code and state requirements, and can build what you need. Now is not the time to cheap out on what you will have for the entire time that you live there. You will also need a generator panel switch if you are going to be installing a generator at some time in the future. I suggest that it might be worth it to have what you want done, drawn up by someone in the trade that understands the code requirements. Reading the code book is one thing, fully understanding all the ramifications of the code is another. What you want to do is quite complex and needs to be done correctly the first time, because it is going to be very expensive mistake if it is wrong.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Indeed, you really do need to talk to someone in the trade, they may be able to come out and make some suggestions that are better or more workable, after seeing what you have.

There is no need for one central disconnect followed by two more disconnects. Code allows up to six service disconnects from the meter/power source. Ref. 2005 NEC 230,71. You only need to install the meter socket and then below or on either side of it, install two service disconnects. You don't say how big the shop is, or what you will eventually do with it, but why not go ahead and install a 400 amp meter socket and put 200 amp panels in both the house and the shop?

Will your local code/inspection people allow the meter to be pole mounted like you propose, some places will not, requiring it be mounted on a building. It would be nicer mounted on the house and you could temporarily mount it on a post near the house with lots of extra wire and then move it and permanently attach it to the house when done. A friend of mine in Wisconsin did just this.

Charles

 

[bigvic]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Junkman,

Trust me I am definitely going to have someone with experience guide me through this project (i will probably just do most of the grunt work), as I stated before I am just trying to get a feel for what is going to be involved in this project to get a rough estimate on what kind of hardware I will have to buy. We have an electric supply house that I plan on visiting with sometime this week. I just figured that you guys might give me some ideas or solutions that I haven't thought of yet kinda like Charles did in his last post.

Charles,

I have met with my electric company and got some specs and standards from them on how this must be done. The maximum meter size that is listed in their literature is a 320 amp with specific meter socket models to choose from. I think that that will be plenty for my needs with 200 going to the house and a 125 going to the shop. Speaking of the shop it is a 30'x40' that will be used for personal use only. I ran some preliminary load calcs on the shop and came up with around 135 amps with all the lighting, recepticles, welder, air compressor and a few other odds and ends maxed out which will likely never happen...at least on a regular basis. As far as the remote meter pole idea is concerned, that was listed as a mounting option in their literature package that was given to me, so I am assuming that it is a viable option. However, I do like the idea that you mentioned about a temporary pole next to where the house will be built and then attaching it to the house after construction. That is something worth thinking about.

Here is a basic sketch of what I was proposing. Again the overhead was suggested by the power company rep as was the 90' maximums for the overhead slack lines.

As you can see the poles and meter would be along the property line and pretty much out of sight. I could easily camouflage the thing so that it is not a distraction.

 

[Gummi Bear]

No need for 3 disconnects.

You can set a gutter or a tap can under the meter, and set tap blocks in it to distribute between the two points of service. You'll have to ground the tap can, and both disconnects, as they're the first disconnecting means in the electrical system.

If it were me, I'd build a strut rack and hang everything off of it at the meter pole.