New Service

[MulvanyWalter@hotmail.com]

I'm a builder and I have an electritian who is kind a new with his license and he's more confused than me as what to do in this situation.

I'm building a 2000sq ft addition on a 3000sq ft house; the house have a 200 amp overhead service and we have to upgrade the service to 300 amp underground service, now the problem is that we have to supply the underground wire and not hte power company. The run is about 150 feet long and with the price of copper is very expensive and I want to give the customer the best service posible but I don't want to over spend the money.
Could anybody give me a hand as to what to use(copper or aluminum wire), what size, could I bring 2 200amp and put 2 panels?
If I use aluminum, would it be to thick and hard to get into the panel?
Is the panel especial for 300 amps?
Thank you for your time and help.

 

[charlie b]

If your electrician cannot help with these questions, you need to consider hiring someone else. These are basic questions for a residential electrician.

That said, I would need to ask a number of questions myself before I could answer yours. For starters, why do you think you need to upgrade to a 300 amp service? The whole process should have begun with a load calculation. From the calculation results you size the panel, and you size the conductors feeding the panel. So I can't tell whether a 300 amp panel is needed without more information.

All I can offer for now is that aluminum and copper each cost money, and each has advantages and disadvantages. I believe you cannot use two separate feeds to two separate panels within the same house. One house, one service, that's the limit.

 

[winnie]

It is quite likely that your electrician knows all of the theory needed to answer these questions, but being new doesn't know the best _practical_ answer. Ask him to join here

-Jon

 

[billsnuff]

Art 220 branch circuits, feeder and service calculations NEC 05

 

[pbeasley]

Also, check with local AHJ. This area will not allow AL on residential installs. And no, I did not ask for a code Ref

 

[e57]

I'm gonna take a stab(s) in the dark here:

2000sq ft addition on a 3000sq ft house; the house have a 200 amp overhead service and we have to upgrade the service to 300 amp underground service

If a load calc was done(?), odds are it may not need an up-grade unless you have a pool and some over-sized AC units. Sounds like someone - either you, or the client doen't like the over-head wiring?

I have an electritian who is kind a new with his license and he's more confused than me as what to do in this situation.

Odds are that the process of extracting the POCO to take action on their end will involve a significant amount of beurocracy, engineering and possibly 6 months to two years worth of wait time. I've been doing this for roughly 17 years now - I still cant get my POCO to cooperate...

Could anybody give me a hand as to what to use(copper or aluminum wire), what size, could I bring 2 200amp and put 2 panels?

Pending a load calc - you might me looking at a 320/400 metering (Next size over 200) and 2 200 feeders from it. But it would need to be a single run to the metering in most cases, and according to your POCO rules/specs depending on where the metering is. After the meter you often can do whatever you like withing the code.

The run is about 150 feet long and with the price of copper is very expensive and I want to give the customer the best service posible but I don't want to over spend the money.

Serving them best would be to do a load calc - as this may not even be necessary. AL wiring can be cheaper - especially in long situations, but by far - overhead is the cheapest in labor and material.

 

[Buck Parrish]

99.9% of homes have aluminum as feeders. I have never seen copper used for this. ( though it probably has been) Aluminum comes in direct burial and does not need conduit unless your going under a driveway, rocks or the poco is requiring it.

Base the size on the load.
But ussually for a 400 amp service the poco would run 4/0 al or 250 mcm al.
Call your local poco and ask them to send out an engineer.

 

[WhatAmp]

Underground service

Underground service

Try using 500-3 or 4 conductor Jacketed Aluminum feeder cable, most times equal in cost to doing it in PVC and a fraction of the time in labor . 500-4 will give you 350 amps , I upsized for the 150 foot run to midigate the voltage drop. Aluminum terminates no differently than CU, weighs 1/2 as much and costs 2/3rd less. See your local Alcan cable guy