Advice/ideas/thoughts for a country home drop/lateral.

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Chamuit

Chamuit

Grumpy Old Man
Location
Texas
Occupation
Electrician
I have a friend who has acreage out in the country in the planning stages for a new home or barn-dominium. The transformer and POCO pole are in the NE corner of the property and currently supplies a little storage shed. He is planning on building in the middle of the lot some 800-900 feet from the power supply.

If we trench, we are looking at approximately 1250 feet of trenching, 3 parallel runs of 250mcm CU or 400/500mcm AL with 200A total load, household voltage.

We could go overhead and shave off 300 feet, give-or-take, and use open-air conductors which allows greater ampacity but doesn't change voltage drop. I have no experience running overhead lines on poles. The guy says he has a gentleman neighbor that has a stinger for setting poles. If we went that route, how far apart between poles, recommended pole height for the distance, and sag?

We've discussed setting xfrmrs to step up then back down but the costs seem to equal out.

Is there another method I'm not seeing.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or ideas.
 
Is the POCO transformer overhead? Can the POCO mover the transformer closer to the new building?
And is the load really 200A or is that the panel size?
 
Give the POCO an easement and put the transformer closer to the house. With raw land, it would be easy to plan and execute an obscure spot to place it.
 
tom baker said:
Is the POCO transformer overhead? Can the POCO mover the transformer closer to the new building?
And is the load really 200A or is that the panel size?
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Transformer is O/H. 200A is just a guestimate. He will have a full house and a workshop/garage/office building at some point. 200 would take care of a lot of home.
 
480sparky said:
Give the POCO an easement and put the transformer closer to the house. With raw land, it would be easy to plan and execute an obscure spot to place it.
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That was my first suggestion when he and I talked about his project.

He doesn't want to give up any property to easements of any sort. I believe he would have to have 30 feet (15 either side) along the entire route to the house if he went overhead.
 
You can easily cut that 200 amps in half for your VD calc. I'd probably run a single set of 500 or maybe 750 AL. FYI I just got a quote for the following, AL USE-2, triplexed together:

1. (2) 500, (1) 1/0. $3.62 /ft
2. (2) 600, (1) 3/0 4.75/ft
 
He already has a meter and panel at the pole on the east side.

It's the crossing of the property that is the "issue" to be resolved. I do realize that this may be one of those scenarios where you have to pay the piper one way or the other.
 
Chamuit said:
That was my first suggestion when he and I talked about his project.

He doesn't want to give up any property to easements of any sort. I believe he would have to have 30 feet (15 either side) along the entire route to the house if he went overhead.
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Time to pony up for some pretty large conductors then.
 
Chamuit said:
That was my first suggestion when he and I talked about his project.

He doesn't want to give up any property to easements of any sort. I believe he would have to have 30 feet (15 either side) along the entire route to the house if he went overhead.
Click to expand...

In my neck of the woods, extending the primaries and moving the transformer further into a property does not require an easement if it is only serving the said property.
On my farm, the transformer for my service is 1000’ from the road (property line).
 
retirede said:
In my neck of the woods, extending the primaries and moving the transformer further into a property does not require an easement if it is only serving the said property.
On my farm, the transformer for my service is 1000’ from the road (property line).
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Easements are certainly required here. And enforced. The POCO has 3 employees whose job it is to simply drive around checking on easements. If, for instance, a farmer is building a shed under the high-voltage lines, they get sent a letter. If the shed isn't removed, the POCO will send out a line crew, move their poles, and send the property owner a bill.
 
retirede said:
In my neck of the woods, extending the primaries and moving the transformer further into a property does not require an easement if it is only serving the said property.
On my farm, the transformer for my service is 1000’ from the road (property line).
Click to expand...

I find that hard to believe, unless there is an existing easement with loose enough wording that moving/changing/extending is still covered by the existing easement.
 
retirede said:
In my neck of the woods, extending the primaries and moving the transformer further into a property does not require an easement if it is only serving the said property.
On my farm, the transformer for my service is 1000’ from the road (property line).
Click to expand...
I don't know exactly all the easement rules but I think it is mostly like that here as well.

I think they end up with somewhat of an automatic easement for utilities that only supply the property they are located on, this is needed for them to be able to service and maintain them.

If the utility line passes through the property to feed other properties, then an easement that is recorded on public records is necessary.

Doesn't matter if it is electric, gas, water, sewer, communications, overhead or underground.

Those that think there needs to be an easement for line that only supplies the property it is on need to look or think harder on this. How many houses in the city have separate easements for each utility I mentioned above? Most newer ones likely is nearly none, old neighborhoods might have some, might even have "grandfathered" lines that don't meet current easement requirements, but sometimes does create issues of who pays for what when an owner wants to change things
 
But getting back to OP's situation, even if an easement is necessary, it only grants the utility access for maintenance and repairs and will not allow them to continue across additional portions of your property to feed a neighbor without you granting them that easement.

If you want to build a new building where the utility is located there may need to be adjustments to the terms and location of the easement and you may be paying for changes, but you likely are paying for changes to any privately owned lines as well if you had gone that route.
 
480sparky said:
It's expressed right in the original easement.
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Things get moved, changed, extended all the time here. It likely does cost the landowner something in most cases, contracts or other agreements often have provisions for changes, if not new arrangements are usually agreed upon in any new contract/agreement before any changes will be made.
 
Farmers, or anyone else, that are not already served by a nearby utility line or upgrading to three phase, get to pay to bring that line in. Doesn’t matter if it’s across 800 feet of private property or along two miles of county road.

When we built our house the nearest POCO lines were that. I was warned by the POCO, that if the farmer wanted, I could be charged for a portion of those extension costs and required easements.

Only makes sense to allow the POCO access to maintain those lines. It doesn’t mean they can indiscriminately extend them.

When I 1st talked to the POCO about power several years prior, they would extend the single phase line 1/4 mile at no cost. When we built, it was two spans of primary no cost, other than the expected load. Now, the primary better already be there.
 
electrofelon said:
I find that hard to believe, unless there is an existing easement with loose enough wording that moving/changing/extending is still covered by the existing easement.
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It is a Rural Coop (member-owned), not a public utility if that makes a difference? I think there is wording in the member agreement essentially stating that if you want service, they can put any of their equipment anywhere on your property in order to provide said service.
But there is definitely no specific easement filed with the county clerk.
 
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