When I was shopping for a home about 5 years ago we saw a lot of places with 100a service. A few had 150a and a few had 200a.
There was this one place that had dual industrial power running to it. I am talking a dedicated transformer, huge dual industrial service panels (over 2k amps per, and I am thinking they were over 3k amps per if I remember correctly), and they had enough heat/AC to take care of a decent sized apartment building. Like dual 25 ton AC units, all point of use water heaters (at least 6 I could find) but with a gas manifold that had 8 3/4" take offs and a custom regulator with a high pressure feed. Furnace units were dual with over 500k BTU each if memory serves. This was all for a uniquely designed home with 4000 sq/ft. A lot of it did not make sense.
Come to find out, the place had an underground facility below it. The new owners found out about 6 months after buying the place. We are talking cargo elevators and multiple levels below the house. Last I heard someone bought it from them within a year of them buying it.
The place I eventually bought was built by an electrical contractor. It has dual 200a services. One panel is the "lighting panel" with all 120v circuits in a 40-breaker panel. The other is the "power panel" with all 240v circuits on dual breakers in a 40-breaker panel. The place has both NG furnace/central air and electrical baseboards in every room, so the baseboard heaters take up at least 9 of the dual-breakers. The rest are the garage sub-panel, water heaters, kitchen stove, lower kitchen stove, dryer, AC unit, central vacuum, hot tub and pool pump.
Since I added the garage sub-panel (a 100a 12/24 circuit box), I moved the two original garage circuits to it, added in another 6 more 120v circuits (most are 20amp with one 15amp for lighting), a welder outlet, plasma cutter outlet, circuit for the air compressor and even one for a 6000w electric heater. So that sub-panel is packed as well.
When I redo the rooms downstairs I am planning on redoing more of the lighting panel than I did before and consolidating some circuits to be more efficient. I am filling out the lower kitchen with more "regular" appliances such as a garbage disposer and dishwasher (originally they only planned for a refrigerator/freezer and electric stove), as well as putting in "to code" outlets (dual 20amp 120v circuits). I also am reconfiguring lighting and such to make better use of the breakers that are there. I already did one round a few years after moving in of cleaning up the circuits/wiring and configuring for how we use things to better "load balance" the phases.
As it stands I have 6 dual-outlet GFCIs in the upstairs kitchen all on their own 20-amp circuits, along with dedicated circuits for the refrigerator, dishwasher, garbage disposer and trash compactor. They did use a shared circuit for the microwave (with dining room and dinette outlets) as well as the lights and fan for the kitchen being on a shared circuit as well.
This place has plenty of electrical outlets though, with 184 duplex outlets and 48 duplex GFCIs. That was why I was kinda shocked that they "only" had 2 circuits for everything in the garage originally.
So, regardless, this place was way overbuilt electrically, but I find I prefer to have it that way.
Now, since everything but the furnace is electric (well, I did add a lower laundry with a NG dryer as well), our electric bills are hell. Gas bills are REALLY low, especially since the house is super-insulated, but I can't get away with outrageous electric bills. Having 5 kids and my mother living with use means we are always doing laundry and the stove gets a real workout. That is why I put in the lower laundry, I want to know if a gas dryer is going to make a substantial difference in monthly utilities. I would love to go with a gas stove as well, but I am screwed since the way this place is constructed it is damn near impossible to get a vent out for the kitchen. I was SOOO disappointed when I removed the original range-hood microwave to find there was no vent.
