400A Residential Service

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Greg Swartz

Greg Swartz

Senior Member
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado
So, right before Christmas, we had our Disaster Restoration company call us. Turns out the boiler broke, and water came into the old panel...

I had a thread on this earlier.

We gave a letter to the Disaster Restoration company (DRI), and they passed it on to the insurance company. Right now, the insurance company wants an estimate.

We talked, and there is no one bidding against us. I talked to the Regional Building Department (RBD), and he said that if we looked at it the wrong way, everything would need to be replaced!

Anyway, we are looking at a 400A service.

Right now, there is a 400A fused buss. (1940s era)... It feeds 2 meters (inside the carriage house), no less...
There are several disconnects from 1 meter, and a panel on the other meter... which feeds 2 more panels. Still not sure how...

My whole point here is... I have never done a 400A service for a residence... I know how to write one up for commercial, but not for residential. I'm sure I'll need CTs. But have never even seen a 400A residential panel. :confused:

Another thing, I think we need to reduce the situation to 1 meter as well.

I am looking for suggestions, and good parts.

Right now, the incoming service is overhead, and I think I want the new one to be underground. (Only about 40' - 60' underground)

Any suggestions, or help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Greg
 
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masterinbama

masterinbama

Senior Member
Location
Huntsville Alabama
If at all possible I would try to do it with a single 400 amp meter a wireway and individual disconnects for the loads. You could more than likely put several of the smaller loads in a single 200 amp panel.

Will your local inspector come out and do a "courtesy" call? Mine here will do that and are very good at giving pointers as to what they want the finished product to look like.
 
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220/221

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Here, we have two local companys that manufacture a 400 amp service, OH or UG with a single meter and two 200 amp fused pullouts. No CT's are involved with a single phase 400.

What we usually use here though (our service panels are outside) is a 400 amp meter/service combo which includes a 40 space main breakered bus and an additional 200 amp breaker for an additional panel. The last one I used was Cutler Hammer BR series and cost about $500 with aditional 200 amp breaker. I know Seimans makes the same thing and SQ Homeline as well.
 
Greg Swartz

Greg Swartz

Senior Member
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado
George Stolz said:
Greg, I'm not seeing the picture clearly, but I'd say the utility will have a big say in this, you might get in touch with them first, IMO.
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Yeah, I know, I have been quite fuzzy in my explanation above. I think that my last thread about the drug issue, has still got a hold on me. :roll:
There's already power to the house, but I think I will call the utilities on this.

masterinbama said:
If at all possible I would try to do it with a single 400 amp meter a wireway and individual disconnects for the loads. You could more than likely put several of the smaller loads in a single 200 amp panel.

Will your local inspector come out and do a "courtesy" call? Mine here will do that and are very good at giving pointers as to what they want the finished product to look like.
Click to expand...
I agree with the single meter and individual disconnects. I think that I can do a lot in the panels.
Courtesty call: Well, I had the head electrical inspector, and he said that they do NOT do courtesy calls until a permit has been pulled... Which I can understand (they don't want to do 10 courtesy calls on 1 project.), but leaves me in a pickle...
I asked him, what he would want... he replied: Everything has to be code compliant...
Well, if everything was 1940s era, that means EVERYTHING needs to get removed and replaced.
Believe me, it really is beautiful. A tribute to the "old days." It is just horribly unsafe. Of course, me telling the HO that I would not even let my kids in the BUILDING went over real well...

220/221 said:
Here, we have two local companys that manufacture a 400 amp service, OH or UG with a single meter and two 200 amp fused pullouts. No CT's are involved with a single phase 400.

What we usually use here though (our service panels are outside) is a 400 amp meter/service combo which includes a 40 space main breakered bus and an additional 200 amp breaker for an additional panel. The last one I used was Cutler Hammer BR series and cost about $500 with aditional 200 amp breaker. I know Seimans makes the same thing and SQ Homeline as well.
Click to expand...
I did not know that CTs were not involved in a 400A meter. I thought everything stopped at 200. George is right, I need to call the POCO.
If I can, I think I will check out those panels. They sound like something I would like to use.
 
Mule

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
Man folks live "high on the hog" !! Cant imagine a 400 amp service on a house....Id do a load calc on it....
 
W

wireguru

Senior Member
Greg Swartz said:
When I went over to give my letter, I got a dozen or so. I will post them soon. Right now, they are on a 10 megapixel camera. So, the pics are HUGE! Gotta import them, and reduce the size / quality.
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cool, cant wait to see them.

Heres a handy tool I use to resize photos http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize its a little exe you place on your desktop or in a folder, name it to whatever size you want the width to be, then you just drag your photos (you can do one, or a group) onto it and it resizes them.
 
N

neutral

Senior Member
Location
Missouri
quogueelectric said:
Our max without cts is called a 320 which is twin 150s. a 400 by me requires cts.
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same here, they called it a 320 amp service, by me thats a 400 amp service I used 2 CH 200 amp panels 40 circuits no CT's. Are you saying you would only use 150 amp main breakers in the panels?

Charlie
 
F

frenchelectrican

Senior Member
Location
Nord'est Wisconsin et Paris France
Greg.,

Check with the POCO for latest info reguarding of 320/400 amp service I know some required CT's or transsocket or just plain jane 320/400 amp slip on meter socket.

Here in Wisconsin typically for resdnetail / light commercal we can go high as 600 with bolt on meters anything higher have to go with CT's { one POCO will allow that format and other POCO will say 400 is cutoff line there }

However I am in France right now and EDF { French POCO } say anything over 200 amp must have CT's { keep in your mind we have 415Y240voltage system here }

again get a hold of POCO then go from there.

Merci,Marc
 
Greg Swartz

Greg Swartz

Senior Member
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mule said:
Man folks live "high on the hog" !! Cant imagine a 400 amp service on a house....Id do a load calc on it....
Click to expand...

Well, I guess I'll show you all...

Anyway, the big building to the west is the famous Broadmoor Hotel... when our president comes to the area, that is where he stays.
As you can see, we are 2 blocks away... where Freddy Kreuger comes to visit. The house is on the south side of the street... where you see a driveway that has 4 trees in it... If you zoom in a little bit, you can see that they pretty much have the entire BLOCK!

Anyway, the place is really neat. The power comes into the carriage house. (Which in itself is over 2000 sq.ft.) Everything from there goes places. The main house is just over 8000 sq.ft. and they have 2 GE panels with no main breakers... In fact, I am not even sure what is feeding them.
The power to the main house is in 2 1 1/2" GRC conduits that run in a tunnel from the carriage house to the main house. All of this is walkable.
If I thought it would help, I'd make it a 600A service. But 400 is doing fine now. Anyway, I'm probably going to have to engineer the whole thing anyway.
 
George Stolz

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
Are you sure it isn't a three phase service? Kinda looks that way from the street.

Anyway, I'm probably going to have to engineer the whole thing anyway.
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Around here, anything over 200A requires an engineers stamp.

If you can in your area, I'm curious. How do you sell this service? Do you just say the whole place is a fire waiting to happen, and it would cost $xxxx for you to re-engineer the whole thing, and walk away?

Edit: I just realized that you are also an engineer, so the question doesn't really apply to you in the vein I originally intended. I'm curious what non-engineers do in that circumstance.
 
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augie47

augie47

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee
Occupation
State Electrical Inspector (Retired)
George Stolz said:
Are you sure it isn't a three phase service? Kinda looks that way from the street.


Around here, anything over 200A requires an engineers stamp.

If you can in your area, I'm curious. How do you sell this service? Do you just say the whole place is a fire waiting to happen, and it would cost $xxxx for you to re-engineer the whole thing, and walk away?
Click to expand...


I'm with George. That's a three phase arrangement on the pole and I don't see it feeding anything else. You definitely need to talk with POCO, 3 phase can make a difference in how they meter. With the square footage you are talking about, a 400 amp service in this area would probably require 3 phase, but there are obviuously a lot of varibales in the load.
 
2

220/221

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Man folks live "high on the hog" !! Cant imagine a 400 amp service on a house....Id do a load calc on it....
Click to expand...

It's not uncommon here. Rule of thumb is, when the all electric house gets big enough for three 4 -5 ton AC'c the service jumps to 320/400.
 
W

wireguru

Senior Member
220/221 said:
It's not uncommon here. Rule of thumb is, when the all electric house gets big enough for three 4 -5 ton AC'c the service jumps to 320/400.
Click to expand...


yep. my friend's house in vegas has an 800a service. has a meter main combo on the side of the house with meter and 4x 200a breakers.
 
A

active1

Senior Member
Location
Las Vegas
What is a carriage house? Is that like a garage for carriages as in horse and carrages?

Do the math. Do a survey of what is going on with the service in more detail. Figure out the POCO requirements. Draw it out how you propose to do it. Submit it to the AHJ, POCO, and owner for aproval.

Quote:
Right now, the incoming service is overhead, and I think I want the new one to be underground. (Only about 40' - 60' underground).

That's more for the customer to decide and the POCO to aprove.

Quote:
But have never even seen a 400A residential panel.

No loadcenter that big. As said it is most often 2 200A loadcenters. Some areas we were in requires residences with 400a services to have a single 400a disco or panel. Then you would see the panel boards in homes.
 
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