Quote:
Originally Posted by wdfifteen
Thanks, The deal is, the garage is metered separately and the power company is upping the charge to $29 a month just to have the meter, plus now they want a deposit (after 18 years) - all for $6 or $8 worth of power each month. I want to wire the the garage through my house so I only have one account and one bill. It will save me $390 the first year and $348 every year after that. I'm trying to decide if it's worth doing.
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You're counterdicting yourself.............if the power company wants to have a seperate meter, then go for it.........put in a whole new 200 amp panel and be done with it with tons of room for expansion.
What size garage? And Unless you have some un-godly huge compressor, (Mine is a 7 horse 80 gallon tank two stage 175SPI) it's only have to have a 50 amp breaker.
Before my big compressor I had 60 amp 240 service, feeding a 30x30 shop, via a 60 amp breaker off the house panel and a ~125 foot run of wire.
But then I added on to that shop with 2100 square feet more, yeah my shop is 3000 square feet. No way I was going to power everything I wanted with researve to spare, so I put in a second meter, second 200 amp 30 circuit panel for the shop addition, and have all the capacity I need plus room to grow.
So once again, what size garage is 200 feet away? how many outlets/lights/welders/compressors/table saws do you want to run, with 25% reserve?
I'm an electrical engineer, and there is no such thing as "too big" of a wire or service. Voltage drop and brown outs is what kills stuff as voltage goes down and amps go up to get the same watts.
for your application, and Alum or Copper, depends on whether you're planning on direct burial or in conduit, there is a difference for heat dissapation. Alum 2/0-2/0-2/0 pre-bundled would be a cheaper choice and the minimum, or copper comes in Triple 6 awg for a 60 amp service for like hot tubs, but at the end of 200 foot, I'd give that a max of a 60 amp sub panel out there.
Go with the full 2nd meter out there run a 200 amp service with a huge 30 circuit panel, and go big with room for growth..........heck the rest is just money. How many compressor motors do you want to go through at $400 each just cuz you're only able to feed it 90-100 volts per leg and running the motor over-amperage verses a solid 120 leg/240 volts total with tons of researve?
You're hiring the electrician, ummmmmmmm this load calculation is what your paying him for? Pull the romex in the shop yourself, put in your own panel and save yourself some money on his labor and put it into your materials.
Buy a NEC (national electrical code book) as they're not that hard to read on what you're doing, or there is on-line help (other than a porsche forum) too.
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if you want, take a picture and post it of your present home electrical panel, as that gives us an idea of how loaded your present panel is and such.........