Allen Bryant
Member
- Messages
- 35
- Location
- Bumpass, VA
The new shop is going slow but well, foundation is in, and floor has been started, I have pictures and will post in the shop tours in the coming weeks.
This weekend I met briefly with the electrical consultant, now he hasn't seen the plans yet, he's coming out to the house next week to look at them and the site. But he was questioning why I was looking at 150 or 200 AMP service. Now my old shop had 100 AMP service and I had no issues with power. It's a one person shop where the most I'm going to have running is a tool, dust collector and lights and heat pump. The dust collector, cabinet saw and heat pump are the only things running off of 220, all of them only require a 20 Amp circuit. The running AMPS on the saw is listed as 13, Dust Collector at 13, and Heat Pump at 6.7 Amps. Not sure what the AMP draw for the fluorescent lights are, but I can't imagine that I would be drawing more than 40 AMPS off the panel at once. That gives me plenty of breathing room. Now these three items are the only tools that were not in the old shop. Everything else runs off 110 and was in the old shop. The old shop before trying to cram everything in a one bay garage was 432 square feet. I had a contractor's saw in there, and heated with space heaters and cooled with a window unit. As for the heat pump in this shop it's one of the DC Inverter heat pumps. I have a smaller unit installed in my office even though my office is in a converted attic on the third floor, it will freeze you out in the dead of summer without even trying.
The cost of getting 150 AMPS out to the shop from the house is nearly double what it would cost for 100 AMP service. 150 AMP is essentially a service feed and not a subpanel feed, so not just the wire being more expensive, but I'll have to add disconnects and other components, assuming I can find a 150 AMP main breaker for the box in the house. The house only required 200AMP service, but I had them put 400AMP when they built the house, but the electrician thinks that's an awful lot to pull off the house panel. At either 150 or 200 AMP he stating the cost would be high enough that it may justify a second meter. That's going to get into costs and headaches I'm not sure I want to go with, namely I'm going to have to go back to the county and redo the permits for a separate electrical source instead of feeding off the house and there is a minimum charge for electricity use each month that I may never hit, so I'll end up paying a higher electric bill than I would need to. I don't plan on doing production work, at 640 square feet room is not that big for tools that would draw extreme amounts of Amperage. I know the reason to increase the power now is in case I change my mind and want to upgrade something later, but I'm thinking stay with 100 AMP for now and if I do make a change, just apply for a service upgrade permit and have the utility company come later and put in 200AMP service off the main power grid.
This weekend I met briefly with the electrical consultant, now he hasn't seen the plans yet, he's coming out to the house next week to look at them and the site. But he was questioning why I was looking at 150 or 200 AMP service. Now my old shop had 100 AMP service and I had no issues with power. It's a one person shop where the most I'm going to have running is a tool, dust collector and lights and heat pump. The dust collector, cabinet saw and heat pump are the only things running off of 220, all of them only require a 20 Amp circuit. The running AMPS on the saw is listed as 13, Dust Collector at 13, and Heat Pump at 6.7 Amps. Not sure what the AMP draw for the fluorescent lights are, but I can't imagine that I would be drawing more than 40 AMPS off the panel at once. That gives me plenty of breathing room. Now these three items are the only tools that were not in the old shop. Everything else runs off 110 and was in the old shop. The old shop before trying to cram everything in a one bay garage was 432 square feet. I had a contractor's saw in there, and heated with space heaters and cooled with a window unit. As for the heat pump in this shop it's one of the DC Inverter heat pumps. I have a smaller unit installed in my office even though my office is in a converted attic on the third floor, it will freeze you out in the dead of summer without even trying.
The cost of getting 150 AMPS out to the shop from the house is nearly double what it would cost for 100 AMP service. 150 AMP is essentially a service feed and not a subpanel feed, so not just the wire being more expensive, but I'll have to add disconnects and other components, assuming I can find a 150 AMP main breaker for the box in the house. The house only required 200AMP service, but I had them put 400AMP when they built the house, but the electrician thinks that's an awful lot to pull off the house panel. At either 150 or 200 AMP he stating the cost would be high enough that it may justify a second meter. That's going to get into costs and headaches I'm not sure I want to go with, namely I'm going to have to go back to the county and redo the permits for a separate electrical source instead of feeding off the house and there is a minimum charge for electricity use each month that I may never hit, so I'll end up paying a higher electric bill than I would need to. I don't plan on doing production work, at 640 square feet room is not that big for tools that would draw extreme amounts of Amperage. I know the reason to increase the power now is in case I change my mind and want to upgrade something later, but I'm thinking stay with 100 AMP for now and if I do make a change, just apply for a service upgrade permit and have the utility company come later and put in 200AMP service off the main power grid.