I want to upgrade my panel from 125 amps to 200 amps.We got a heat pump and the electricians connecting it knew I wanted a wood shop and they said that with their load calculations they said there was 93 of 125 accounted for.However when they got the panel off the eight blank circuits that I thought were there are just unfilled parts of the panel and there's no where to put them in behind so the whole panel needs upgrading.After working on my mom's house in my own house before I'm going to go for a Square D panel and breakers for a cohesive lookThe company doing the electrical work on the heat pump knew I wanted a woodworking shop and said that the service conductor is fine and the pole has enough capacity at the Transformer to make that change.So, I have to probably replace the conductor in the Mast down to the electrical panel through the meter, I have to do a new bit of construction for the new meter complete with larger capacity, and probably have to upgrade a ground rod for the larger panel. Have I missed anything?
Bump.Opie here, I've done a lot of electrical work, mostly smaller things don't like adding 220 outlets and running wire, digging in electrical services for the electrical company and being one of their grunts.
>>2961587Leave existing panel alone.Replace mast conductors and meter base with 200A unit with breakers. Feed existing panel from this. Install new shop panel from meter base panel.IMO, electricians should have offered this option when they did heat pump and you asked for future capacity.
>>2961587Sparky here: this plan will work, but beware of the coordination and effort involved-fuck up replacing the mast and you may be without power for some time if you can't finish the job/pass inspection the first day. It all depends on what your local utility is like. Even for pros this type of job can sometimes a full day for a crew of 2 if you run into something.If your wood shop is a detached building and you have the money, it may be worth considering having a separate mast and meter installed just for the shop. This is probably not economical unless you have massive amounts of equipment.>>2961787This isnt a bad idea, but you do want to replace the panel in your pic no matter what, as that brand, Federal Pacific, is notorious for causing fires.
>>2961795Yeah I like the Square D breakers I've never had a problem with them. The guys doing the replacement on here had to dig up an old breaker that would work in this old panel as they couldn't get any brand new ones for this type of panel.I do have a separate building on the property but it had electrical service delivered from a wire just buried a few inches under the ground that is not rated for that so I got rid of that entirely.There is also a separate building on the property called the park model with an attached garage. The park model is sort of a glorified trailer but it isn't rated for habitation year-rounded mostly used by Farm Workers doing the busy season. I don't want to put my woodworking shop over there as I might want to add a welder and an outlet over there so I can do that kind of stuff there
>>2961587I had a pole placed with an outdoor service panel and outdoor 240 and 120v outlets before erecting my shop. I gave that a subpanel later but immediate power beats the shit out of a service replacement there was no reason to do. The bill is trivial and having a full service lets me run whatever I want including welders and compressors. Zero disturbance to my home and not having to trench etc from my home service saved me a shitload of work for less return. Even if my service had capacity the work to connect a portion of that to my shop would have been more hassle than a fresh service. A major shop service bonus can be no total power interruption while OP upgrades the home panel. >>2961963>I might want to add a welder and an outlet over there so I can do that kind of stuff thereYou can also have an outdoor welder outlet anywhere you have a service so I do. I have a home service, another home service to my secondary house so I could rent it out, and of course the mentioned workshop service. For outdoor welding and (mechanical) cutting/grinding I use SOOW cable extension cords. That plus the dispersion of my outlets gives me considerable range when working on vehicles, trailers etc.
