Author Topic: Electrical advice re: new panel or wiring a subpanel  (Read 2293 times)

Snowboard junkie

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Electrical advice re: new panel or wiring a subpanel
« on: September 15, 2017, 10:58:31 AM »
This is for my office/shop.

I have a 2 section building that is about 3000 square feet in total.  Sections are 1650/1350. Current setup is separate meters. One has a 125w panel other has a 100w panel. 
Is it best to:
A. Combine everything into a single panel?
B. Run a line from the meter into the 125w panel & use the 100w panel as a sub panel. 

I am a little short on spots in the 125w panel, but there are split breakers I am told I can use. 

Either way I am not paying for separate meters.

Milspecstache

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Re: Electrical advice re: new panel or wiring a subpanel
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2017, 07:58:46 AM »
I doubt you can sub one to another due to the fact that the lines coming in to the panel are likely not capable of handling all the load.

You must mean 100 amps vs watts as well.  To sub as you suggest you would need a 200 amp panel to feed the 100 amp panel elsewhere.  To beef up the 125 amp panel to a 200 amp panel would cost a good deal of money and then tying the two together would also cost money.

I have a similar situation at my house where I have 2 separate bills: one for the house and a separate panel going to my farm buildings.  I don't like it but I'd rather pay a small fee per month than several thousand to fix it.  There are other benefits as well since I have 200 amps at the house and 400 amps at the other buildings (ideal for running a welder, for instance).

sokoloff

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Re: Electrical advice re: new panel or wiring a subpanel
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2017, 09:02:41 AM »
You can feed one as a subpanel if you like, but you'll need to pull a new 4 conductor (2 line, 1 neutral, 1 ground) and feed that from a double-pole breaker on the main panel. You then rewire the (now) subpanel to isolate all the grounds and neutrals from each other.

What you save is the meter/hookup fee every month. That's around $12/mo here. What you give up is the current cash needed to make the changeover, the future flexibility to lease out part of the building to another user or potentially to sell them separately down the road, and the ability to account for one of the uses differently (if one use is fully deductible and the other isn't, for example, you could fall back on per-sq-ft allocation, but that might be less advantageous if the deductible use is higher/sqft).

I'd probably skip on doing the work; the ROI is definitely poor if you have to pay someone to do it and pay a permitting fee (which you probably can't avoid if required in your area, since the utility will know about it). If you can DIY all of it (and are willing to research and teach yourself how to do it safely as a few details aren't obvious to the inexperienced), the breakeven is probably still pretty long (and you've given up some future flexibility).