400 amp main panel installed at detached garage/guest house

[LukeMac]

I am bidding a set of plans that show the main electrical panel at a detached garage and guest house. This building is closest to utility pole.
The main house is quite large, it requires more than a 200 amp sub panel.

Typical equipment: Siemens 400 amp meter panel which has one 200 amp breaker with 30 spaces, and a 200 amp breaker for a sub panel.

As far as I am aware, all feeders to the main house have to be in the same conduit; I cannot run a 200 amp underground feed, and then also a 100 amp underground feed.
Should I install a 400 amp meter at garage, then a 400 amp disconnect at the main house with (2) sub panels, and then backfeed the garage with a 100 amp sub panel?
Has anyone had experience with the meter main being installed at a smaller outbuilding?
Thanks

 

[augie47]

I think you have some options and POCO may be the key.
Locally one of the POCO's I work with would be willing to CT meter on the pole (or an adjacent riser pole) and you could one one set of service conductors to the detached garage and one to the house.
In another area, you could mount your 400 amp meter pan on the detached garage and run a set of service conductors to the house (without entering the garage) and another set from the pan to the garage.
A third option, similar to the second , would be a pedestal mounted meter pan with services to both.

 

[suemarkp]

Are there things outside the house that could be fed by their own branch circuit and therefore reduce the load from the house panel to 200A or less. I'm thinking of HVAC compressors that sit outside and don't require any 120 or 240VAC to go from them inside the house.

Other things to consider:
Can you use a meter enclosure with no overcurrent devices and run a 300A service to the house and a 100A service to the detached building (Augie47's approach)?
Can you have a generator in the detached building and have a 100A feeder from there also feed the house (that should be a different characteristic from the 200A panel and be allowable, and I think optional standby systems are explicitly allowable as a second feeder).

 

[LukeMac]

Only one source of power to the house

Only one source of power to the house

The past two weeks have flown by, sorry.

I talked the owner into moving the 400 amp main onto the main house.

The problem with feeders, or individual circuits such as the A.C., is that local codes require only one source of power for an entire building. If we have a 200 amp breaker for a sub, and then a 50 amp breaker for an A.C or three, then it would be multiple sources of power for a house. The idea is that someone would THINK that they turned off power to the entire house, but in reality there would be some circuits on.

Thanks for the help!