30 X 40 Shop Build on a peninsula

[m016324]

So I've finally gotten to the point where I think it's worth posting. It's taken me about a year to put up a 30x40 metal building on my property. There's a lot of stuff that's very specific to my build that I'll document and some that I'm hoping applies to others wanting to do something similar. So I'll start with an explanation of the name of the thread.

This is a picture of my property. The dark red box is where the original detached garage was on the property. As you can see there's a creek that runs behind it but what you can't see in this picture is the elevation changes.

So hopefully it makes sense why I called it a shop on a peninsula. I'm sure at some point (after you hear the whole story) someone is going to ask why I didn't just put it in the big open area on the right side of the property. There is a reason for it

that entire side of the property is full of 60'-100' trees and actually partially sits in a flood plain. So I'll start the story with why I didn't just keep the existing garage. First, it was put up in the early nineties right after our house was built. It was designed as an extended 2 car garage and was permitted at the time (this detail will matter later) Here's what it looked like.

Roof was in need of replacement, there was rot along the sides of the building, and my biggest issue was the inside joists were all at about 9', which meant I had no chance of installing a lift. The one good thing was the original pad that was installed was in great shape. There was a small extention which you can see in the picture of the rear of the garage that wasn't done to the highest quality. We'll talk about that more later.

I talked to several contractors about increasing the height when redoing the roof and since this was the end of COVID i got several FU prices for doing that work. I also got quotes to knock this down and do a stick build and was also given several FU quotes and a timeline that started in late 2022. All the contractors were so busy in my area at this time that doing something with this building wasn't going to happen.

 

[m016324]

Which is where my fun story starts dealing with the county. So in December of 2021 I purchased a building from NC Carports & Garages through boss buildings.

Metal Storage Buildings, Sheds, and Kits at Affordable Prices

Our metal storage buildings and sheds are hard to beat for functionality and durability. Steel storage buildings look great, need little maintenance, and add some character to your backyard.

www.bossbuildings.com

The reason I did this was they are reasonably local and have building plans for every county in Virginia. If you are looking to do a metal building I would make sure you use one that's within about a 4-5 hr drive max. I found companies that were further away didn't understand the local codes very well and I knew that would be an issue for me. I had them quote out a 30x40x16 building. I really liked their configuration tool too seemed to be easy to spec out exactly what you want.

So that was my quote which includes delivery and install. This was something I also found was different with different companies and one of the areas of "gotcha" for the final quote. I didn't have the time to put it up myself and for the difference I found in the price of assembled versus unassembled ($1200) wasn't worth it as i would have spent almost half of that just driving down and back to get the materials.

One other thing I learned during the process is they will mail you samples of the colors you are interested in. We wanted it to be as close of a match to our house as possible. Actually had several companies send me samples and the ones from NC Carport were the closest to our current house color. So from the configurator this is what I came up with

30x40x16 with two 10x10 doors two man doors and a 8x8 door on the back.

Actual building end up with color matched sides and roof matching gutters but you'll see that eventually. So once I purchased the building they sent me the engineered set up drawings which I could then submit to the county to start my permitting process. I had everything lined up from the demo of the current garage to the pouring of concrete to the tentative date of delivery for the building. It was to all happen in Jan/Feb of '22 building delivered March 14th two days to build and be ready to move in.

 

[m016324]

Henrico County seems like many other counties I've heard about only worse. So like I mentioned in the first post the property has a creek that runs through it. Unfortunately for me that creek ends up in the Chesapeake Bay which means that creek is a watershed and is protected. Not only is it protected but you aren't even allowed to build with 100' of the creek for fear of killing something hundreds of miles down the waterway from me. I of course didn't realize this when I first submitted my paperwork for my permit. Everything from a building standpoint was pretty straight forward and I submitted my concrete plan almost on a napkin. Well then I got a call from the environmental group in Henrico and they explained to me that not only would my future plans not work but my existing garage was illegally built.

So I spent the next 5 months finding the original permit (which was completed after the Chesapeake Bay Protection act) going to public hearings on my building spending about 5k in engineering fees (had to hire a PE for all the work) Doing a elevation certificate, no rise certificate, water quality impact assessment, and eventually an exception to the resource protected area behind the garage site finally got me on the docket for an actual exception

The thing that was really interesting to me during the process was the most important thing to the county was the nonpermeable ground that was being added. My original plan was to knock off the small outcrop on the back and building at the same depth but all the way across essentially making a large C around the existing building. After spend a ton of time with the environmental engineer (4 separate site visits) i finally pulled it out of him that if I could reduce the nonpermeable space I would have a much higher probability of success. So I redrew my concrete plans to create an "L" instead of a "C"

With this plan I also found out that my existing rock driveway is considered nonpermeable by the county (don't know why) so I was able to double the size of the pad and only added about 125 sq ft of nonpermeable surface. The point of this long story was if you run into issues with permits work to understand what really drives the decision. For my county I needed the environmental engineer to agree that my plan was acceptable then the variance board would agree to grant me an exception. There's a ton more detail to this part of my build, but finally I had a hearing in front of the exceptions board and was granted an exception for my building.

So should be good to go at this point you would think. Nope wasn't in the cards, as the paperwork went through the permitting office the public utilities group flagged an easement on my property for a water line that ran right through my existing garage.

 

[m016324]

So if you compare the drawings from above to the easement drawing you can see that a water main easement was put in in 1997 which was four years after the garage was built. I have no idea how that happened and how the building which had a permit before the easement was put in place could exist in the same exact place as this easement but that's what happened and now it's my problem. So no surprise the county doesn't want a building over an easement and the definitely don't want twice as much concrete over the easement as currently sits. So I was essentially told after all my environmental approvals I couldn't move forward on my project. So I went down to the public works group and found out it's actually an abandoned water line but the paperwork wasn't recorded correctly so now I had to ask for the easement to be vacated.

Counties don't like giving up easements as once they do they very rarely get them back. So my neighborhood only has about 50 houses in it. Originally I think they were going to split up our land into multiple plots and the water line was going to service those houses. Well time moved on and the water line for the rest of the neighborhood was put in under the street, which meant they didn't need the water line going through our property. So i got the public works department to sign off on vacating the easement. Should be all good at that point right? Of course not because the group who actually signs off on the vacation of the easement is the county board who wouldn't consider even hearing the variance until the real property office signed off. So spent the next two months figuring out who to talk to and finally got the real property group to listen to the public works group and agree I could have a hearing.

I went into the hearing thinking I had about a 50/50 chance of getting the variance. I ended up being on the road for work during the hearing at an airport on my phone's wifi for the webex call the county had. Was a complete nightmare, but when it was my turn the case was presented by the county they asked me two questions (are there other buildings similar in my neighborhood (there are two)) and will it stand out in the neighborhood (I said it wouldn't as it would match the house) and they bought it! So in late August I finally got all the approvals to start building my garage.

So I gave my concrete and demo contractor a call to set up times to start the work. Which I had been in touch with every 30-45 days during the whole process and I had already paid half down for the work. Phone was disconnected and no response to any of the emails I had.

 

[m016324]

So at this point I'm in for a penny in for a pound. I've spent over half the year figuring out all the permitting issues and now my contractor has disappeared. So the smart thing would have probably been to find another contractor to do the work, but I had already stroked a check for 8k and wasn't willing to let that go.

So I spent about two weeks researching these guys and find out the business did go under but there was a new business at the same address that sure as hell looked like a concrete company. So I found their number through their company incorporation paperwork and give it a call. Low and behold the lady I had set up everything with answers the phone. Turns out the partners for this company had a falling out and one guy essentially took off and created a new company. And the other partner said he would uphold the quote he gave for the demolition and concrete. So once again we're back in business after almost loosing again.

Now what wasn't clear when we started back up was he was now essentially a one man show doing this on nights and weekends. Not the end of the world for me but obviously made for a longer timeline. So after several weeks of trying to arrange a time he could start the demo I come home to this

We literally drove up as he dropped the roof of the building on top of the building collapsing all the walls. He essentially cut all the corners of the building out and then pulled it down with his bobcat! Wish I had caught that on video but I did catch some of the demo after which I thought was funny.



Seeing the bobcat battle against the garage for some reason made me laugh.

 

[jhama78]

Following. Kudos on getting all this through permitting in Henrico County.

 

[m016324]

So that was October and by the middle of November my wife was pretty pissed that it still looked like this:

I don't have a ton of pictures of this because I honestly was trying to avoid it! But essentially the building was knocked down and about half of it was hauled away and the guy who did the work couldn't get another container dropped to finish the job. Found out about 2 weeks later it was a personal cashflow issue so I floated him the money and we got the container the next day and the following weekend the site looked like this

So we have most of the old building gone and have started the site prep for the new pad. Well I had asked when I needed my next inspection and I was told when the slab is poured, which seemed odd. I have emails saved showing this was the response from the permitting office. Literally the day the concrete truck is coming I get a call from the county asking if I've had my footer inspection. Of course I didn't so had to call off the concrete truck that day. Here's how the site looked when we called off the concrete truck

 

[GLTHFJ60]

No rebar or mesh in the slab other than where it's doweled into the existing?

 

[AlxJ64]

Following. Kudos on getting all this through permitting in Henrico County.

^This!!! I have a friend, the guy who bought my metal pole barn kit actually, is battling Henrico right now over a million and one little things. They're sooo slow to get back to him and then tell him different things on site than they did in the office. I feel for ya just based on what he is going through.

 

[m016324]

So Henrico came at some point and I got a notification the footer inspection passed which was great. So scheduled the pour. Crew was there day came and went no truck. Scheduled it for the following day half way through the day concrete company calls and says they can start the pour at 6 PM (this is a full 12 yard pour) so we declined as we didn't want his guys out all night. So finally we switched companies and went with a relatively new company in town that bought three on site mix trucks. Paid a little more per yard (about 20 bucks more 180 a yard) but no waste and these trucks can actually carry more to the site because they mix on site. i'd never seen anything like it before. Has a section that holds sand, section that holds rock and then multiple tanks on the sides for additives including mesh.

I'd never seen a concrete truck like this so I also took some video:

Here's how the mixing works:


Here's a view from further away to see the whole process:


So first pour is done which means I can take a picture of the slab and send it to the company that is building the building. They actually won't start building until you send them a picture of your slab and the site of the slab (some more foreshadowing) so they know they can install the building once it's built.

So first pour turned out pretty good 11.9 yards of concrete 5k with mesh through out the whole thing. They did pout it a little wet so there were guys floating it until about 10 pm that night. Next day pad finished.

So time for the building process.

 

[m016324]

So like I mentioned in the previous post the scheduling of building you building only starts once you pad is poured and prepped for construction. If you remember I paid for the first half of the building in 2021 with the idea of having it in place 90 days later. Well almost a year later I finally got them the proof I had a pad ready for a building. Typically the process is 4-8 weeks lead time once you send in the photo. I sent it in on Dec 2nd as that is when the pour occurred. I fully expected them to tell me we'll have it ready at the end of January. Well I guess the plant had some extra capacity and their install crew didn't have anything to do the week of Christmas so I got scheduled for install on Dec 20th. That meant I need to start hustling because I needed to rent a 5k 40-45ft telehandler for the installation. Which I did

Not sure if everyone noticed the pad still had a bunch of stuff on it (compressors, a lift, axles, and some other misc stuff) So I got them to drop the telehandler early. Well because I'm an idiot while moving stuff I did this to the pad one day before they showed up to put up the building.

Now I am an idiot but often I'm a lucky idiot because somehow both of the breaks ended up being under the doors at the front of the pad. So my concrete guy agreed to cut out those sections and we'd fix them when we poured the driveway. Which also meant I ended up leaving the lift inside so I didn't break more shit.

So the guys show up to start to put the building together. I thought I took some pictures of their setup but looking back through my photos I couldn't find any I took of their rig. Was a newer f-350 crew with a completely custom trailer meant to haul the pieces of a metal building to the site. It was about 6' wide and about 36' long and had stuff hanging off the ends. The trailer could expand or collapse about 15' based on the load they were carrying it was a cool adapted tool.

So the crew was supposed to leave NC around 6 AM and by at my house around 10 AM. 7:15 I get a call expecting the crew to tell me they had got off late or something. Nope the foreman said they were 15 mins away and would I meet them outside! So 7:30 they roll up and walk the site and the foreman essentially says I can't build this building on this site there isn't enough room. I asked them what it would take to build on the site and the foreman went back with his guys and they talked and he said it would take $800 dollars in extra labor. I told the foreman get to work I'll either pay it or ask the company to split it with me but to go ahead and get started. So called the company and it really was on them because I had sent pictures of the site ahead of time and had shown the size and restrictions in the multiple pictures I sent, but we agreed to split it.

One of the things that's pretty hard to tell is that on each side of the pad about 3' out on the right side is a pretty steep drop (shows in the topo's at the start of the thread) and about 10' on the left side you have the same thing. Then on the back of the building there isn't enough space to build the entire front and back panels and lift them up as that is there normal process for building this size and height building.

One tip I did get during this process if you have a tall building it is much easier for them to install if the panels are vertical instead of horizontal. If they company had told me that and I had ordered it the install crew wouldn't have had any issues. So the building starts getting built:

One other nuance is they had to build a ramp when they used the telehandler anywhere on the pad so it didn't create more cracks.

So by the end of the first day they had a pretty good amount completed. I have to say these guys were absolute animals. They had woken up around 2 am to head to my house and stopped working at 5 pm. I also didn't mention that we were racing getting the building up because there was a winter storm coming on Thursday. If they didn't have it up by the end of the following day it was going to be a bad deal for everyone because they'd have to come back, rest of my schedule would get shot, and I wouldn't have an enclosed space for my stuff during the storm

 

[m016324]

No rebar or mesh in the slab other than where it's doweled into the existing?

Rebar all through the footings (18" all the way around) and an extra 3' all the way across the face of the butting of the two slabs as that's where I plan to put the lifts. Might be hard to see in the photos. Mesh shows up in the next post with the concrete truck. If you check out the first video you can actually see it getting added to the concrete mix.

 

[bgaidan]

I'd never seen a concrete truck like this so I also took some video:

Here's how the mixing works:


Here's a view from further away to see the whole process:

Volumetric mixer. Great for small project like utility manholes and whatnot. Usually cost prohibitive for larger pours since they're limited on what they can haul and you either need to send them back to get reloaded or have stockpiles on site to reload them.

It's a slightly inferior product as it's not as uniform as what comes out of a central mix plant, but it's more than fine for a slab. Unless something's change recently, DOT wouldn't let you use them on a highway project except for certain types of latex overlays that pretty much require them.

 

[bdkw1]

You have far more patience than I do.

 

[ridered3]

Quite the roller coaster to get to this point and crazy what all you had to go through.

Having never messed with the permitting process so far, would it have been possible to have all the permitting stuff taken care of and then have a contractor or did you need to have a listed contractor as part of the permitting process on the front end?

 

[m016324]

Volumetric mixer. Great for small project like utility manholes and whatnot. Usually cost prohibitive for larger pours since they're limited on what they can haul and you either need to send them back to get reloaded or have stockpiles on site to reload them.

It's a slightly inferior product as it's not as uniform as what comes out of a central mix plant, but it's more than fine for a slab. Unless something's change recently, DOT wouldn't let you use them on a highway project except for certain types of latex overlays that pretty much require them.

Not sure if it's different here but the most they could load in a concrete truck here was 10 yards and they poured 11.9 out of that truck on the first pour and 12.3 out of it on the second pour. I think they may have run the truck a little heavy. The other thing I liked about the truck is there is no waste they can pour 4.5 - 12 yards and they charge by the tenth of a yard thought it was pretty cool. Like I said it was slightly more than a concrete truck but what I didn't mention was I was quoted 4k for the concrete truck from a plant and what was poured was 5k which I have no idea if that's more expensive or not but it was nice to get a slightly stronger concrete.

Thanks for the expert info!

 

[arse_sidewards]

Front loaders are usually 10yd.

 

[m016324]

Quite the roller coaster to get to this point and crazy what all you had to go through.

Having never messed with the permitting process so far, would it have been possible to have all the permitting stuff taken care of and then have a contractor or did you need to have a listed contractor as part of the permitting process on the front end?

Sure I could have but I would have had to produce the technical drawings which honestly would have probably involved a contractor anyway. But yes you could do the permitting ahead of time, but part of my story with the county was I already bought the building. No idea if it really helped or not but I don't think it hurt. Also you don't get the technical drawings from the metal building company until you pay for half of the building, so I was locked in on the building type I used.

 

[ridered3]

Sure I could have but I would have had to produce the technical drawings which honestly would have probably involved a contractor anyway. But yes you could do the permitting ahead of time, but part of my story with the county was I already bought the building. No idea if it really helped or not but I don't think it hurt. Also you don't get the technical drawings from the metal building company until you pay for half of the building, so I was locked in on the building type I used.

Makes sense all around there (minus the County permitting hoops).

Was just curious on the process since I’m fixing to have to jump through lots of hoops to build a building in one of the toughest Counties in Tennessee in terms of building codes etc.

 

[m016324]

Day 2 of the build. The guys kept at it. Showed up at 7 am and worked all the way until 4ish. They thought they were going to be done at noon and there were lots of little things that were just harder because they had to mostly assemble the building with ladders and using the telehandler from outside the pad.

They were doing some pretty sketchy things with that telehandler but they got it all together. Like it shows on the invoice I did get the rood insulated and after reading several threads went with a batted insulation instead of the bubble insulation. What I'd found out from my research is the bubble really only prevents condensation and provides no real insulation. At some point in the future I'm going to do a spray insulation probably when I had some HVAC in a couple of years. For now thought just having the roof insulated should help with keeping it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

So another thing I was scheduling at the same time was an epoxy floor coating. I read a ton of threads on several forums and I found the product that I wanted and the colors I was looking for and looked around for someone who wanted to do the work. Had a bunch of people quote me between $8-$12 a square foot. Which seemed to be close to the going rate. Then I found Gustavo! He has a full time job doing industrial installations of all sorts of flooring products. He has a side hussle that is normally just him but because this was a little larger job for just him he brought in a buddy. he quoted me $3 bucks a square foot! I looked at the materials he used and it was the exact same as the other guys but he was only charging me about 800 bucks for labor and machines whereas the other guys were charging double and triple. If there's anyone in the greater Richmond area that wants his contact info I'm more than willing to share.

So a big part of getting epoxy right is the prep of the floor. So Gustavo and his buddy brought a huge grinder with vacuum and started grinding and leveling the the floor.

they also hand ground all along the edges of the building. Actually looked like one single slab when they were done grinding which was pretty cool.

Next step was the basecoat and the flakes. The applied this the same day they did the grinding after vacuuming for what seemed like hours. I asked him to do a heavy flake as the flakes are really what adds the strength to the floor coating.

It's still pretty wet in this picture so it shows some discoloration. The next couple of days it was pretty wet and it was New Years and all of that. I think it finally dried up enough January 2nd to get the final top coat on.

once again the floor is still wet in this picture but it came out really nice and even. I really like the final result. I don't have a picture of just the floor after the fact but I can take one later and reinsert

 

[arse_sidewards]

How much for the building kit?

 

[m016324]

How much for the building kit?

I assume you mean for the epoxy? it was just over $2800 for the materials. He also ended up bringing some other flake he had to finish up the heavy flake that he had left over, so I'd guess if one were to buy the amount of flake that was used it would have been 3k in materials.

 

[arse_sidewards]

I assume you mean for the epoxy? it was just over $2800 for the materials. He also ended up bringing some other flake he had to finish up the heavy flake that he had left over, so I'd guess if one were to buy the amount of flake that was used it would have been 3k in materials.

No. But now that I've reviewed the beginning of the thread I found the answer to my question.

 

[ridered3]

Awesome info on the epoxy floors and tell Gustavo that I’ll pay him $5 per square foot if he’ll travel to middle Tennessee when I need him.

 

[AlxJ64]

Not sure if it's different here but the most they could load in a concrete truck here was 10 yards and they poured 11.9 out of that truck on the first pour and 12.3 out of it on the second pour. I think they may have run the truck a little heavy. The other thing I liked about the truck is there is no waste they can pour 4.5 - 12 yards and they charge by the tenth of a yard thought it was pretty cool. Like I said it was slightly more than a concrete truck but what I didn't mention was I was quoted 4k for the concrete truck from a plant and what was poured was 5k which I have no idea if that's more expensive or not but it was nice to get a slightly stronger concrete.

Thanks for the expert info!

Theres an exchange for mixing drum weight rating as you can get 11 yds in most McNeilus standard rear dump trucks, but the issues are DOT axle weights in Virginia so usually 11 - 14 yd trucks are the big tandem steer beasts that don't usually end up in residential areas.

The over 10 yds out of the truck still adds up if the truck chassis is a light build and the equipment is lighter and where it's carried on the truck... again, its axle weights that control the weights with these short chassis vehicles. If you look at the lift axle location on that Betty Crocker truck you had, its basically a tank and falls under some of the new truck axle spacing laws. Notice all of the bridge signs with 4 and sometimes up to 7 different trucks? Thats not the state DOT deciding to do that, that was the trucking industry and the Feds working together. Before a bridge was run and posted for the worst case scenario, which isn't always the biggest truck... so now they all get posted individually when the different trucks yield different results.

That Betty Crocker mix can be great or can be junk, all depends on how good the mix operator is. The other benefit is you don't lose "ticket time" on a delivery. 90 minutes hopper to trowel, otherwise techincally you're pouring partially cured concrete, but there are admixtures that can extend that some, usually resulting in some extra finish cracking.

 

[m016324]

So the next step in the process is electrical. So before all of the building started I actually contacted my utility provider to see if I could upgrade the service at the garage. The original garage had a single 30 amp circuit that ran from the house to power the lights and garage door opener. That wasn't going to work for what I was planning on using the building for. After talking with Dominion I was transferred to the new service department and a brand new engineer asked me what I was looking to do. We talked for awhile and she said it would probably be easier to understand with a site visit which I agreed to wholeheartedly. So she came to my house and we walked through what I was planning on doing and she sent me a request form to fill out. There were some simple boxes to check and some cells to put in the equipment i was going to have so filled that all out and sent it in. Request 400 amp service dedicated to the garage. We already have 400 amps to the house so I was curious what they were going to say about doubling the available amps at our house.

Got a note back from the engineer asking if there was any future equipment I was thinking of installing (obvious code word for we need more energy consumption to justify this) I said absolutely I'd love to have a lathe, mill, drill press, HVAC, ect ect. So Dominion came out and installed a larger transformer on our property and proceeded to directionally drill from behind the driveway to the garage. Remember is also has to go through all the elevation change both up and down. And they charged me nothing! Guess being a monopoly energy supplier in my area they'll get that cost back some day. I did find out that dominion has two directional drilling crews for residential that essentially need to run all the time for it to make sense so projects like mine apparently aren't that uncommon to get approved.

So anyway got that all put in place before even buying the building but it's obviously part of the story. So with 400 amps available I decided to hopefully future proof the building for power. I hired an electrician who of course was only going to work nights and weekends for the job because I like to keep my themes going for the build. Actually Robert was amazing. I don't think he would have been the cheapest but he did a really great job and has helped me through the permitting process for the electrical (passed rough and final both on first attempt!)

So for electrical I wanted 4 outlet receptacles every ten feet everywhere in the building. I also wanted 220 drops in several places in the garage for moving around the welder/plasma and maybe in the future some other bigger equipment. I also wanted my compressor hardwired in behind the building. I wanted two drops for lifts. Lastly I wanted some good high bay LED lights. Looking through my phone I don't actually have any pictures of the electrical because it actually went really smoothly and in the end there wasn't too much to document. I'll try and take some pictures over the weekend when I get home to show the layout. I did take a video of the lights though.

 

[bgaidan]

Holly chit! 2x 400a services? How big/what's in your house to need 400a? And how much do you plan to squeeze in to that shop to need that kind of power??

I have a 200a at my house and 200a at the shop, which is what the PO did. If I were doing it today, I'd get a single 400a and then split 200a to each building. What I learned after I moved in is that with Duke a second meter on a property is automatically billed at commercial rates. Not way to get around it unless I were to subdivide my plat and make the shop its own address....which would cost a couple decades of the extra power billing.

Even with my compressor, 3 lathes, 2 mills, welders, and other shit I think I'd have to start them all at the exact same time before I'd have to worry about running out of amps.

 

[arse_sidewards]

Yup. 200a is fine until you invite friends over.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Shit, I've only got 200a to my property with 100a sub panel to the garage. That's enough for one person working, lol.

 

[m016324]

Holly chit! 2x 400a services? How big/what's in your house to need 400a? And how much do you plan to squeeze in to that shop to need that kind of power??

I have a 200a at my house and 200a at the shop, which is what the PO did. If I were doing it today, I'd get a single 400a and then split 200a to each building. What I learned after I moved in is that with Duke a second meter on a property is automatically billed at commercial rates. Not way to get around it unless I were to subdivide my plat and make the shop its own address....which would cost a couple decades of the extra power billing.

Even with my compressor, 3 lathes, 2 mills, welders, and other shit I think I'd have to start them all at the exact same time before I'd have to worry about running out of amps.

yeah our house has most of the panel filled. It was built in the late eighties with all sorts of electrical gadgets we probably have 150 amps consumed just in the kitchen in this house when we moved in. We've converted some stuff like a gas range and gas dryer, but yeah that's just the service that came with the house. I asked the engineer at Dominion if there was any difference between 200 amp and 400 amp from their perspective and she said no. So I guess the answer to your question is why wouldn't I do it? Like I said didn't cost me anything except an extra 200 amp panel. I guess it does cost me like 7 bucks a month for the separate meter but it's charged at regular residential rates. I'm guessing it'll take a really long time to pay back that transformer and the directional drilling.