Customer has an underground service feeding his house. The service lateral is about 200 feet long. He is going to build a barn and the UG service runs under the corner of where he will build it, so the service lateral must be moved. I'd say the corner of the building would cover about 8 feet of the existing cable. The new barn location is about the mid point of the run. The service lateral is direct buried 4/0 aluminum cable. Owner says it's 18 inches deep. I think it should have been 24" to meet code but I hope that is not an issue.
I'm thinking of installing two handholes a few feet back from where the foundation will be excavated, and running new cable around the corner of the building. I'll keep the cable several feet away from the new structure and bury it at least 2 feet deep. Splices will be made in each handhole to complete the circuit. I'll ask the Poco to shut it down during the excavation, trenching, cable laying, splicing and inspection which will take all day.
He also wants power in the new barn. Just a few lights, receptacles, maybe a welder, maybe a compressor. I'm thinking a 100 amp service to the barn but most of the time it will draw nothing at all. Would you expect the Poco would want a new UG lateral back to the pole? Or would you expect them to allow a tap into the handhole for a service. Customer doesn't want to dig back to the riser pole because he will likely dig into his existing service.
I'll discuss both issues with the Poco (Nstar) but thought I'd run it by you guys and gals first. Any feedback?
And last but not least, he wants to put a generator outside the barn to feed the house during outages. He figures he can utilize the existing cables that feed the house that run right by the barn. I told him those cables would not make his generator installation any easier and to trench a seperate run for that. I think he is just going to skip the generator as part of this project. I guess if money were no object to him (I don't know) I could put a 200 amp transfer switch in the barn and size the generator for the full house load but it seems pretty complicated and I'm not sure what the Poco would say about it.
Sorry for such a long post. Thanks for any input. Mike
first and foremost, do a proper survey of the customers fundage. this is gonna
cost. :smile:
see what the poco will allow to be put on those 4/0 feeders, as a service upgrade. upstream of the barn is the issue, obviously.
you can get a 400 amp residential service, that has a 200 amp panel in it,
and a 200 amp branch circuit to feed another panel, for something like $800.
make the house panel a sub off of the 400 amp service.
as for the direct burial feeders, skip the hand holes. hypress butt splices, and
3M cold shriink tubing. uncovering the hot feeders is best accomplished using
patience, and a *good* circuit tracer... amprobe's 326b is excellent.... with
a bit of practice, you can located underground feeders within two inches on
location, and two inches on depth.
for the transfer switch, and genset, you can put those downstream of that
200 amp breaker. keeps it simple. a whole house genset is gonna be 'spensive,
and you'll have to consider where to put the propane tank to run it, where it
can be filled, and such... a 500 gallon tank can be purchased for 1,200~1,500
anyway, that's my opinionated opinion, for what it's worth.... :smile:
