The big shop electrical upgrades thread [long, 56 pics]

[jwmelvin]

[mention]FliesLikeABrick [/mention] I’d love to have seen your work before I started on my shop. I have a collection of MC circuits that run from my garage sub panel, added in layers over the years. It does pretty much what I want and I add what I need over time. The outside walls are concrete, partition walls uninsulated and open, and ceiling of open trusses; so running wires is easy, but it would be much neater, easier to change, and probably only marginally more expensive to do it your way.

 

[zuhnc]

The interlock on the main panel is a very proper solution; safe for everyone.
I understand the two separate feeds; I have a single meter, but two feeds - one to the house and one to the shop. They have 1998 three-wire UF, as was installed back then. 2 hots and one neutral. The main panels in both buildings are the N/G bond for that particular building. Even though a single meter, I still have to have two generators; can't maintain the single N/G bond point with using only one generator, unless I have two ATS's with switched neutral. Won't do that.
Since I have the N/G bond in the main panels, the generators have to have separate neutral and ground brought out for the emergency panel (sub-fed from the main panel).
I don't have any way to do solar, as the panels would have to be out in the pasture, 200-300 feet from any building. I know it is possible, but the wiring gets to be more complicated (and therefore more expensive) than I would like.
A simple three-pole, double throw manual switch would also be an alternative for your small generator for the critical equipment. Along with appropriate UPS's.

 

[rabler]

Out of curiosity, why the separate service from the house? Too far from the house, or just the way the previous owners had set it up?
I'm in the process of swapping to a 400A meter with dual 200A disconnects, one for the house and one for the shop.

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

I don't have any way to do solar, as the panels would have to be out in the pasture, 200-300 feet from any building. I know it is possible, but the wiring gets to be more complicated (and therefore more expensive) than I would like.

yuuuuuuuuup. The shop roof has enough square footage that we could install more capacity beyond what even the house would need... but the cost to trench appropriate cabling across the front yard (250ft) is insane if the solar contractor does it. Understandably they wouldn't want me to rough the wiring in, so the most I could do is trench conduit for them to pull their own conductors into. I am considering it, for some day.

A simple three-pole, double throw manual switch would also be an alternative for your small generator for the critical equipment. Along with appropriate UPS's.

Yep. The server racks have their own UPSes in them, which are good for 45 minutes of runtime on the network and ~75 minutes on the servers.

Most of this equipment is powered off most of the time (used for lab purposes and powered on when-needed)



I already have the inlet receptacle that I can install outside the shop (immediately opposite the main panel, next to the driveway... it's perfect and way better than the location I dealt with at the house). Maybe I'll get to that in the next week or two since I already have the cover off the main panel for a couple new circuits in the garage. At an auction last year I got 2 brand new 6kw garage heaters for $50 total as part of a larger lot of stuff nobody wanted - so I'm putting in 2x30A circuits with contactors and a light switch, so that I can mount the heaters on the ceiling out of the way.

And because you commented on it and may ask in a reply - yep on both our generators I broke the neutral/ground bond since the building provides that in both cases

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

Out of curiosity, why the separate service from the house? Too far from the house, or just the way the previous owners had set it up?
I'm in the process of swapping to a 400A meter with dual 200A disconnects, one for the house and one for the shop.

Yeah, 200-300 feet from the house depending what corners you measure from. The house was built in '92 with "only" a 200A service, and the panel is 100% full (partially due to good use of the available breakers, and partially by the electric baseboards that provided the primary source of heat when the house was built). It would have probably cost them substantially more to trench from the house than to just have a new service installed by the utility company.

 

[rabler]

I forget not everyone just goes out and rents a trencher and does it themselves. 1400' from our house to the barns. The barns are on a separate meter, but I did trench a fiber for cameras across that.

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

I forget not everyone just goes out and rents a trencher and does it themselves. 1400' from our house to the barns. The barns are on a separate meter, but I did trench a fiber for cameras across that.

I will be doing that at some point for some fiber and other things, but didn't want to rush into it because there are water and septic lines between the house and shop (plus the buried power service to the house from the pole)

 

[zuhnc]

Original install. House is about 50' from the garage/shop, and the garage is closer to the meter than the house. Based on the original construction, it was cheaper to install the UF to each building than to house and then garage, or vise/versa.
Garage is about 60' from the pole to the main panel, and the house is about 120' or so.
I have enough generators to have one for each building; 15KW for the house and 5KW for the garage/shop, plus a 1KW, 2.7KW, 3KW, (all gasoline or gaseous, air-cooled), and a 6KW diesel water-cooled. All Onan.
I hadn't thought of fiber to the barn (150'), but already have Cat-5 between all the buildings, in conduit.
Had to rent an E35i excavator to dig the trench 18" deep; rocky (shale-type, not granite-type) ground here. Trencher wouldn't do the job.

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

I have enough generators to have one for each building; 15KW for the house and 5KW for the garage/shop, plus a 1KW, 2.7KW, 3KW, (all gasoline or gaseous, air-cooled), and a 6KW diesel water-cooled. All Onan.

I have 3:
- A Ryobi 7kw for the house
- A Craftsman 2500w single-pole/120v for the computer load right now (via extension cords)
- I was given a 4kw (I think) generator that has 120v and 230v outputs. It is older and needs some repair.... the problem is that the 230v output doesn't have a neutral. If I can get it running, and if there is a center-tapped neutral available (probably from the 120v outlets), I should be able to rewire it slightly so that this can become the shop generator.

I hadn't thought of fiber to the barn (150'), but already have Cat-5 between all the buildings, in conduit.
Had to rent an E35i excavator to dig the trench 18" deep; rocky (shale-type, not granite-type) ground here. Trencher wouldn't do the job.

I have a little 3000 lbs mini-excavator we'll be renting for another project very soon now, but I won't have it long enough to tackle one of these other projects right now. Our soil is all clay and loam (bedrock is about 8-10 ft down)

 

[SLK001]

I forget not everyone just goes out and rents a trencher and does it themselves. 1400' from our house to the barns. The barns are on a separate meter, but I did trench a fiber for cameras across that.

A lot of electric companies won't install into someone else's trench. They are responsible for the feed to the meter, so they do the digging.