Mislabeled Service

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mparkstexas

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I am working on a new restraunt in a strip center in Houston, TX. There will be our restraunt, and one other tenant, unknown at this time.

On the site visit, the main disconnect was labeled as 600A, 277/480V 3 phase, 4 wire. Our restraunt requires 400A at 277/480V, and I designed our space accordingly.

When the contractor went out for a pre-bid survey, he pulled some covers and discovered the main service is a #500 wire. So there is a total of 400A to the whole building.

My question is, is it possible to work with the utility company to provide a new service for our space? Or should we force the landlord to comply with the lease, and re-work the service to the building. Is one option more cost or time effective for my client?

Thanks in advance.
 
mparkstexas said:
I am working on a new restaurant in a strip center in Houston, TX. There will be our restaurant, and one other tenant, unknown at this time.

On the site visit, the main disconnect was labeled as 600A, 277/480V 3 phase, 4 wire. Our restaurant requires 400A at 277/480V, and I designed our space accordingly.
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Is you concern that the size of the 600 amp panel physically too large and interferes with your design?

When the contractor went out for a pre-bid survey, he pulled some covers and discovered the main service is a #500 wire. So there is a total of 400A to the whole building.
Click to expand...

400 amps is what you wanted. Correct?

My question is, is it possible to work with the utility company to provide a new service for our space? Or should we force the landlord to comply with the lease, and re-work the service to the building. Is one option more cost or time effective for my client?
Click to expand...

Not sure what you want from the utility. Is the 500 kcm installation belong to the utility? What would the utility have to do? What does the landlord need to do?
 
Are you talking about the POCO's wire being the 500? If that is the case, I would just get a project manager at the POCO to confirm this is big enough on their end. You would be surprised what POCO engineers spec for wire sizes compared to what we have to run by code. I've seen the local utility run much smaller than 500 mcm for 600A.
 
Our local POCO used to run 4/0 AL for underground laterals for 400 amp services, they size their wire on projected load, not on possible load, which usually is less than 50% of the overcurrent rating. This sometimes ends up causing severe voltage drop issues though. The worst one I have seen was 100 volts available at full load. Store was cooking ballasts at the rate of 4-5 a day.
 
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