800amp residential service

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elvis_931

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Tennessee
I am wiring a 17,000sq. ft. house. The power company wants an 800amp service, and I agree. The only problem is that I have never put in an 800amp service on a house. The block layers are laying for the basement wall tomorrow and that is where the service location will be. They want to know how big and where to make sleeves for the service. My question: what is the best way to put this in? Any layout ideas? One 800a meterbase and two 400A service disconnects feeding 4 subpanels?
 
i saw one of these the other day on a 10,000 sq/ft house. it was a meter/main combo with 4x 200a disconnects. I dont remember what the pipes for the poco were though
 
elvis_931 said:
I am wiring a 17,000sq. ft. house. The power company wants an 800amp service, and I agree.
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What does your load calc say? I've seen less house with more service.

elvis_931 said:
The only problem is that I have never put in an 800amp service on a house. The block layers are laying for the basement wall tomorrow and that is where the service location will be. They want to know how big and where to make sleeves for the service. My question: what is the best way to put this in? Any layout ideas? One 800a meterbase and two 400A service disconnects feeding 4 subpanels?
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4x 200A disco's should be much cheaper than two 400's. Or go w/ wireguru's suggestion of the meter/main combo. It'll be massive and it'll be expensive. I ordered a 400A combo once w/ two 200A disconnects; it was almost the size of my truck hood, weighed at least 100lbs, and was $500. I would check w/ the poco before doing that though because they may want you to use their transocket. different strokes for different folks. we have some poco's that require it at 600A 1ph and others require it at 800A 1ph.
 
This is something you should have worked out with the POCO field engineers long before now.

I can almost guarantee that an 800a service will be metered with CT's; the last 800a service I did was.

It was a trough and four 200a MB panels, with each panel's feeders bolted to the CTs' bars.

Everything was in the basement except for the meter itself, with the usual 1.25" EMT and #10's.
 
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LarryFine said:
This is something you should have worked out with the POCO field engineers long before now.
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Yes, it is. The thing is I am still bidding the job and the guy calls me and says the basement is going up and the block layers are wanting to know where, how many andhow big to make holes. I have not had a chance to get with poco yet. Just received drawings a few days ago.
 
elvis_931 said:
Yes, it is. The thing is I am still bidding the job and the guy calls me and says the basement is going up and the block layers are wanting to know where, how many andhow big to make holes. I have not had a chance to get with poco yet. Just received drawings a few days ago.
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We don't move a pencil without a signed contract from the GC we don't contact the poco engineering until we have the job deposit in the bank. and cleared.
 
brantmacga said:
What does your load calc say? I've seen less house with more service.



4x 200A disco's should be much cheaper than two 400's. Or go w/ wireguru's suggestion of the meter/main combo. It'll be massive and it'll be expensive. I ordered a 400A combo once w/ two 200A disconnects; it was almost the size of my truck hood, weighed at least 100lbs, and was $500. I would check w/ the poco before doing that though because they may want you to use their transocket. different strokes for different folks. we have some poco's that require it at 600A 1ph and others require it at 800A 1ph.
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brant, brant, brant....$500 is expensive? it's a 17,000 sq foot house.....put it in context....
 
satcom said:
We don't move a pencil without a signed contract from the GC we don't contact the poco engineering until we have the job deposit in the bank. and cleared.
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What?:confused: How can you even get to the point where you even have a contract to sign if you " don't move a pencil without a signed contract"? What kind of GC is going to give you a deposit on a job you have'nt even put a pencil to yet? You at least have to figure enough to get a number for the "deposit". There is so much wrong with the statements in your post. Arrogance :smile:
 
emahler said:
brant, brant, brant....$500 is expensive? it's a 17,000 sq foot house.....put it in context....
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well that's compared to what you could do it for w/ two 200A disconnects. i'm just sayin'. btw, i knew someone was gonna call me on that. :D
 
Sounds like the GC is not doing his job, just using his phone to call people to 'get things done'. A GCs job is more than getting people on-sire to do work, it is also performing something that is called 'co-ordination'.
 
1: homeowner self contracting
2: 17000 SQUARE FOOT HOUSE
3: the foundation isnt even in an there are ALREADY coordination problems and typical HO "I need you over here today to get this done" type stuff
4: Unless the following are true then RUN!
a: this homeowner has successfully built homes of this caliber before
b: you REALLY need this job
c: financially, you can absorb delays and other problems
 
You need a load calc for this house.

You need to get the POCO involved once you know the load calc for this house, and how much more you want for future expansion.

You need to emphasize with the HO that you need more time to make sure this gets done right the first time, do-overs are time-consuming, frustrating and expensive when brickies/electricians are involved. Try to get the brickies started on the other side of the house.

Good luck with this, these sound like the kind of headaches that keep me firmly resolved to work for somebody else. :D
 
The situation is not as bad as it sounds. The HO is a seasoned VERY succesfull developer. He was not pushing me to do something, he was trying to get info about the service so that he could make provisions in the block. It turns out that it is not block, but one of those concrete and foam poured walls. I am glad he asked me about this because it will be easier to do the service if the wall is sleeved and I do not have to drill.
 
elvis_931 said:
The situation is not as bad as it sounds. The HO is a seasoned VERY succesfull developer.
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That's a relief. :D

He was not pushing me to do something, he was trying to get info about the service so that he could make provisions in the block.
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Then in this little tug of war, you need to push back to get the info you need to provide him with an accurate answer. ;)

It turns out that it is not block, but one of those concrete and foam poured walls. I am glad he asked me about this because it will be easier to do the service if the wall is sleeved and I do not have to drill.
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I thought you said it was not as bad as it sounded? :D

Seriously, without a good one line, brought about by a load calc and a discussion with the POCO engineer, you're up a creek without a paddle. There are a lot of different configurations you could go with, and a customers ball park guess of "How about 800A" is not a good idea, IMO. Get him to either pay you for a load calc, or get someone to do it.

My 2?. :)
 
elvis_931 said:
What?:confused: How can you even get to the point where you even have a contract to sign if you " don't move a pencil without a signed contract"? What kind of GC is going to give you a deposit on a job you have'nt even put a pencil to yet? You at least have to figure enough to get a number for the "deposit". There is so much wrong with the statements in your post. Arrogance :smile:
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Play nice, boys! :smile:

He means don't get stuck doing engineering or legwork on a job you don't even know if you're getting.

Imagine how you'll feel after doing load calcs and hours of phone calls and meeting POCo guys on-site and planning locations and sizes of conduit/cable sleeves, and then someone else getting the job because they were able to use your homework and make a lower bid.

The GC, whether a good guy or not, will use any information he can gather to get as much work done for as little as possible.

I know I would.
 
It's easy enough to have a pay-as-you-go structure for the homeowner/contractor. Set a fee for the load calc., a fee for the meeting with the POCO, a fee for the service and branch circuit design. This covers your expenses before you give the grand bid and lets you establish the relationship with the homeowner/contractor where they wouldn't consider using anyone else. If they hesitate to contract for these fees you know you have a shopper and can get out before you have much in it.

Dave
 
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