So Frustrated...

[PoPo]

In august I bought a new house outside of the city I work in, better schools, better people and well its not in the city I work in (refer to user name for job)

Well my old garage was 32x25, I had separate 100 amp service from the house, heated, insulated and 25 ft of cabinets on one wall. It was awesome (for me).

After getting broken into we decided it was time to move. my new house had a smaller garage but it was attached and I wanted that at the time.

I've been waiting for an electrician to come out and give me a bid to run new service to the garage/house which ever was easier as my 100 Amp box is full for the house. Well he just left and told me:

I'm going to have to do this through the business, not on the side. I have to run new 0-4 Wire from the supply, trench it in (all underground wiring) through the neighbors yard, through mine, then over to the garage.
Estimate $4,000 or so, and he was being nice. Plus I will have to pay my neighbor for the damage to his yard (he loves his yard more than anyone I have ever seen)

I had the idea of paying at most $1000.

OMG.

I have a hot tub that was given to me during a divorce (parents couldn't decide who got it so went to me.) my welder and A/C are both 220V and well I cant use either.

I have a 1931 Model A sitting on a shelf, literally, that I made in my garage because I can't get to work on it without a welder. I think I just lost all of my motivation for the winter and more.

Sorry, I just had to vent.

And right after I picked out my new cabinets I was going to get for the work area.

Guess my only option is to put off the car hobby for a few years, sell my house and move somewhere when it comes time. Man I'm bummed.

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[sheslostcontrol]

Can you get more opinions?

 

[nate379]

Why can't you run your welder on 100 amp service

 

[ovilla]

Why don't you just create a small 60amp subpanel in the garage and feed it from the house? Like you said it's a smaller garage anyway. This way you can start using your welder and start work on projects. Then next spring you can dig trenches and put a bigger panel in place - if you still need it by then.

 

[BlindViper]

If I read it correct hes panel in his house is a 100 amp panel and its full. Thus not giving him the room to run a panel to the garage.

How about one of those machines they use to run wire under the road ways.?

 

[brownbagg]

wire the shop yourself, get home owner permit. trench it yourself. not through your neighbor yard. never, never do that. Hire an electrician to look at the work and make the tie in. to a sub panel off the house. Then call my county to look. Make sure you do it under permit or the county will put you under the house. Wiring a shop with couple 220 plugs is easy. You will run four wire off the house sub panel to apanel in the shop. then seperate into 110 outlets, lights, 220 outlets. Do everything by code. and use all copper

 

[Kev442]

I would make a very heavy duty 220 braided wire extension cord for the dryer plug. When welding, no dryer, no extra load on the 100 amp service. A 12 gauge extension cord for 110 w/ a tri plug end and you're there.
Did you know hot tubs cost $40 per month to run? No hot tub for me!

 

[kbs2244]

Get the power co out for a look.
They rarely run the power to one house through a different lot.
And have them give you the estimate for the service upgrade.

 

[krooser]

Find a different electrician...

Install a 200 amp panel in your house and use a sub panel in your garage...

 

[bmwpower]

I can't imagine why you would need to run power across your neighbor's yard. Is that how your power is run to your place now?

 

[e-tek]

Did you know hot tubs cost $40 per month to run? No hot tub for me!

A man's gotta have PRIORITIES!!

 

[bmwpower]

Holy **** that is cold. I wouldn't be able to stand it.

 

[Keith_MN]

I would try to make room in your existing panel by installing a couple of breakers that fit in the space of one breaker. In the electrical trade they are called "cheaters" and are simply used to make space in a panel board that is max'ed out with breakers.

I recommend still hiring a professional because you need to be careful when moving around breakers in the panel. You may have two hots sharing a single neutral and these needs to be kept on opposite phases.

Most home garages do not need that much power anyway. At most, with one person working, people rarely have more than two items on at once (i.e. an air compressor and one other tool). Therefore, you probably only need enough power for your lights, air compressor and the largest power tool (probably a welder).

Therefore, I would use these cheaters to make room for a double pole breaker and run a 60 amp sub-panel out to the garage.

 

[RbrtAWhyt]

Damn, that brings back memories of when I lived in Fairbanks, AK...

Brr....

 

[PoPo]

I have two cheaters in my panel already. Im way maxed out.
Here is what I came up with after I calmed down and started thinking normally again. I called my brother in law. He owns HVAC company locally and he just bought a drilling rig for his Geothermal. Gets it delivered Tuesday. He said he could drill from the box (neighbors yard) to the rear of my garage to pull the 0-4 wiring through. He would do that for barely nothing for me.
I live in an association style housing addition. All the power is under ground. The main power box is located in one back yard and goes out like an octopus to the houses. The electrician said most houses built in the 70's only had enough power for 100 Amp service.
I wanted to put a 60 A in the garage subbed, but I dont have the room. I already wired the garage with the new outlets for 110V and the two spots for the 220V for the A/C and the welder. did that prior to putting up my insulation and drywall in Sept.

I do have a 50' ext cord that I had for welding out in the driveway of the old house but I don't want my garage door open to the house while I'm welding and such. I am not in a hurry to build the A so a temp fix won't do much for me.

I am definately going to get more bids and such. I just needed to vent a little and figured you guys would understand

And the hot tub situation, well you can't put a price tag on sitting out there with your wife, a nice cold drink and relaxing. I'm not worried about $40 a month. If it became too much I would just shut it down and drain it, hey it was FREE.

Thanks for the help guys.

It also doesnt help that two rooms closest to my power box both have drywall finished ceilings. Damn that guy who didn't do a drop ceiling in there.

 

[Weber1]

E tek...so good brother

 

[Weber1]

have u talked to the neighbor? maybe he needs some power too. split the deal?

 

[nate379]

Why don't you just run a larger panel? Every house I have lived in had either 100 or 125 amp service and never needed more than that really.

My folks place is on 100 amp and they have the house and 2 garages all running on that.

One garage is my Dad's shop with welder, compressor, etc and the other just has a few lights, furnace, openers.


I mean think about it... how over do you have the water heater on while running the dryer, cooking supper, and welding?


E-Tek... I need to find the pic my Mom sent me last winter when it was -63* at their house in Maine.

 

[PoPo]

I will look into putting more into my box as an option. My neighbor doesnt need any power either.

Here is a really rough sketch of my house and the power box area i did on Paint.

I hope that makes it easier to understand

I was to the point of just fogetting the welder and such but I still want the power so I can have the hot tub up and running this next year.

 

[rodnok1]

I would add a sub panel or two to main house then use it to power garage/extra circuit that have maxed you out.

 

[Keep]

So the guy that came in wants to put a 2nd meter in? I am missing something.

Why not just upgrade your main panel to 200 amps, pull off of that. Seems pretty silly to go through all that hassle for just 100 amps to the garage.

Find new electrician.
Run the new cable to your old box.
Upgrade main panel to 200.
Run subpanel off main panel.

What am I missing here?

 

[kornjulio]

I'm with you, Keep. My old house had 100A service & I wanted 200A. Had an electrician come out. He upsized the wire from the meter to the service, installed a 200A panel & generator transfer kit for around $1000.

Maybe the OP's electrician has a concern that either the meter or feed from the box isn't big enough to handle the 200A box; if there's such a concern.... ???

 

[PoPo]

his concern was the feed from the box wasnt big enough to the original meter. I had originally planned to just upgrade the box to 200 A but the room its in is a spare bedroom that is finished with a finished ceiling and to be honest, I don't want to tear out new dry wall, last owner finished to help with value of the house.

I had an electrician tell me to just put a new 200 A box in the garage, then use the original box as a sub box for the house.

I am going to call some companies this week for the use of their free bids and figure out what will be the best solution and go from there. If its going to be too much then I'll just wait 3 years till I do my 22ft addition to my garage and turn my driveway to be on the front of the house instead on the side as it is now. (but thats way down the road!!)

Thanks for all the replys guys.

 

[tdkkart]

I'd do some checking, I'll bet that if you research your lot plats you will find that there is an 8-10' utility easment there somewhere, probably right from the power box to teh space between you and the good neighbor, which means the power company can come in a chew it up all they want and "awesome yard guy" can't say nothin'.

 

[dugger10]

Call the power co. they control the wire from the trasformer to the meter assuming the meter is on your house. The electricains price bothers me, I smell a rat. You may have to pay the power co. but they have an easment over your neighbors yard, let them deal with him, after all you deserve whatever power requirements you want. Good luck and I work for the local power company here, 30 years plus.

 

[Keep]

I would not like having the house run off a sub with the main in the garage. Advantage of the garage being a sub is I can make sure everything is off and the garage door cannot be opened with a flick of the main on the garage panel.

 

[charlie_nj]

Just a thought, if your current service panel is a typical 100 amp 20 space panel, you could just replace it with a 32 space panel like the Square D one here:

http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/(tasqpjne125nsqrzdqkxbbiw)/ProductDetails.aspx?SKU=998019940

This would free up space to run a feeder to a subpanel in the garage. Depending on your skill level, it's not that hard of a job. You could pull the permits yourself, and probably do the whole job for around $800 or so in materials. Like I said, just a thought. Stay safe.

 

[willymakeit]

I'm going to assume that feed is in conduit. Existing conduit might be big enough to pull new wire thru and then install bigger panel in house. If your area code will allow then install old panel in garage.

 

[PoPo]

this is exactly why I posted my frustrations on here. I knew there would be some knowledgable people here.

I am definately going to contact Alliant Power Co reference the easement and the power possibilities. I need an assessment of my insulation for a rebate anyways so maybe I can kill 2 birds with one stone.

I will also look into a different box with different breakers to free up space if I keep getting extremely high bids.

Thanks again guys.

 

[brownbagg]

you can use your existing as a sub, add a new box beside it for 200 and then run a hard conduit down the side of the house to the garage or trench by footer and run a sub panel into garage. That way your light still be on main but all you new plugs and 220 on new sub panel.

evverything from meter out is power company problem.

 

[cashishift]

Why not rent a trencher and do as much as you can (after getting proper markings from diggers hotline) then grab a case of beer and get a few buddies to come over and help dig the rest.

 

[big redd]

Hey PoPo,where about do you live in the Quad Cities,I live about 25 miles from there in a small town called Illinios City.Not to far from Loud Thunder forrest peserve.Nice to see someone close to me .

 

[moe1942]

It's time to upgrade the house to at least 200A and run 100A to a garage sub panel. Turn key should be less than 2K. A lot less with BIL doing the trenching. You can lay the wire, and run it into thr house and garage. Leave the trench open til the electrician does hookup and it's inspected.

I doubt if you would ever exceed 100A for both house and garage.

 

[PoPo]

I'm not trenching anything. My BIL now owns a drill/bore for geothermal. its fascinating to watch them do that, its a 2 man gig, they walk with the magnetic guide and the other runs the drill.

My goal is rerun the house as 200 A and do the garage as a sub. Especially after reading some of the ideas/comments.

Big Redd I live in Park View and I'm a cop in Davenport. I lived in muscatine for a few years, my family used to own K&D Clothiers mens clothing down on 2nd street and my uncle owned Ron's clothing in Aledo for a while.

Called the power co today, they have someone calling me back within 48 hrs. I'm going to call some electricians today to get more quotes.

 

[nate379]

Lot of places that isn't going to happen unless you upgrade the transformer. Everywhere I have lived 100-125amp is the normal deal, granted 200amp isn't all that crazy if you have a heat pump, electric appliances, etc.

It's time to upgrade the house to at least 200A

 

[PoPo]

I have a gas water heater, but electric dryer, stove and some day I would like geothermal heat in my house, for that the power co should help bring more power to my residence.

 

[PoPo]

Ok finally got an electrician to come today and not him-haw around. I explained my needs for power and he took them and figured out the best way for me to get it completed and the price.

I have the Square D QO 100 A box in the house (good box!)
he said he was going to take out the original meter and put in a Pedistal Meter with 2 switches on it. the first one would be 100A and go directly into the house, the second would be another 100A and go in conduit over to the garage where I would have another square D QO box in the garage.
He said it would cost $2500 or so, a rough estimate he was going to email me the actual estimate. I told him to just give me a rough so I can have an idea if this is going to happen some day and get the draft later.

I also talked to the power company, they said if I have needs for 200A or more it would be on them to supply me the power. But they wouldnt do that until an electrician contacted them after the install and inspection was completed!!

I feel so much better now! It's more than I had planned but its ok with me. We had talked about hanging 2" conduit along the side of the house but I decided that I would dig along the house 18" deep to bury it as I don't want that eye sore running along the house, it would have to have a couple bends to get around windows and a spicket and dryer vent.

Well I'm no longer frustrated, now just saving my extra pennies and nickels to get the $ together.

Thanks all

Jarrad