Landslide
Red Skull Member
- Joined
- May 20, 2020
- Member Number
- 422
- Messages
- 1,182
power increase will allow welding and whatnot without worrying about overloading the service panel.
I was forced to do this much sooner then I was originally going at it. I was buying stuff that was left overs from other people’s jobs. I got my 200’ of 3” and 200’ of 2.5” electrical conduit off of CL. But earlier this year I got up to piss in the middle of the night and my bathroom lights wouldn’t turn on but I had outside lights on at my shop. So I go downstairs and check the circuit breakers and all were good. I had recently major remodeled my bathroom and knew my wiring was good but was like ?!? When the lights wouldn’t come on.
so I come up my staircase and hear my fridge making a buzzing noise so I unplugged it and called the utilities company. They came out around four hours later and around 30 min later my power came back on
so I leave my house going to work in the morning and see a large wire going from the pole at the street across my lawn to my meter box. They call to trench out my front yard to replace the wire that shorted out. It was direct bury from 1978. I put a stop order on them coming out and told them I’m going to bump my service from 200A to 380A.
Got with my buddy to help me and he pulled permits and got the rest of the supplies I needed to do this job. So I brought home a JD 50G and dig out a 400’ ditch from the utility pole to my house from my house to my shop. All are 200’ apart from each other.
in this process I’m replacing both service panels/breaker boxes in my house and my shop. Outside my house we installed a 400A meter box and my shop disconnect box next to it.
I mounted the new breaker box in my basement next to the old one in a better location easier to get to. Then we moved all the 110V circuits over to it and ran a jumper to power it up.
Tuesday I had the utility company come over and switch power from my old meter box to the new one. They were out a couple weeks ago and replaced the transformer preparing for the increased amperage needed for the service. While they were switching power I was moving the rest of the 220V breakers over to the new box
Then my buddy and I pulled wire down to my shop from the disconnect. Now the last phase is to replace my box in my shop and run the new feed into it and turn it on.
an awful lot of work but I feel a lot better about the upgrades.
