How would you do this garage.

[mikeames]

I have a 4 car garage on a property. It will have a compressor 50a welder, outlets / lights, light equipment etc. A 100 amp panel will be enough. It will be a real nice home work garage. This garage is located @ 1200-1500 feet from the house on the property. How would you run power to it? Run 240v or step up to 480v (single phase) and drop back down? I really dont want to run another service because of cost. The property is 34 acers and the garage is furthest from the utility. I know I could oversize the feeders but the cost is counter productive. Would the added expense of transformers be worth it in your opinion?

 

[wireguru]

i think doing it with transformers is the only feasible solution outside of another service. @ 480 i think you would just need a single run of 4/0 AL, less if you run it at 600V. And you only need two conductors + EGC instead of 3. If the shop is infrequently used and dont want to pay for the electricity to keep the transformers energized you could supply the whole thing with a contactor, have on/off buttons at the house and shop with control wire inbetween.

 

[kwired]

Did you get a cost for new service or did you assume it would be too expensive. Large conductors or transformers cost money also and there will be some losses in the transformers. Is there a possibility of more load in the future? If underground is same amount of trenching either way. If there is a desirable way to get POCO primary there via overhead it may be cheapest (maybe not with all POCO's).

 

[mikeames]

I assumed the POCO would be more based on previous experiences. I did not sit down and work the numbers.

 

[Buck Parrish]

Here a separate metered service would be good. In most cases if it's new construction the poco may not charge.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

I would get the poco to add another service. Around here the poco will run the underground for free to a new service so the cost now is way cheaper. Welders and compressors at that distance would need a very larger wire.

At 1500 feet and only 60 amps you would need a minimum of 350Kcm copper or 600kcm aluminum

 

[Sparky555]

I'd go with the recommendation of the POCO up to the garage on a new service and wouldn't consider less than a 200 amp service.

 

[augie47]

If POCO is not a viable option, unless I made a mistake, 250AL @ 1,500 ft on a 600 volt run would be a 3% drop and provide you with 175 amps @ 240.

 

[growler]

I assumed the POCO would be more based on previous experiences. I did not sit down and work the numbers.

Every power company is different but the way I normally work things is to talk with one of their engineers. For something like this you would probably have to meet with them on site.

If the power company installs a new service then they maintain all this new cable but if it belongs to the homeowner then it's his responsibility.

 

[mikeames]

I think I will talk with the POCO. It will make it that much easier. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[carryyourbooks]

voltage drop depends on distance and load, not just distance.