eta:
If you want to go with the split systems (the ones you mention are known as “mini split” systems, btw) - look out for the noise! I watched one promo video, and all they would say about the noise was “it beats a window a/c!”. Ummm… that is not really reassuring.
Unless you want one more thing to worry about, KEEP THE BOX INSIDE! Theives find their lives simplified by exterior service boxes
$1400 sounds like a very good price for the work described(MA prices). If you want to be more comfortable with pricing give another electrician a call for an estimate. Estimates are typical free. Also ask why he is recommending a 200amp service when a 100 amps is fine for the size of your home or get a cost comparison between the two sometimes the difference is so small it just makes sense to get the larger service.
I’ve seen a few services that are 120 only. Never found an explanation for why it was originality done that way. They were upgraded to 240 in any case.
For efficacy purposes in the long run you will probably save money by upgrading. There is AC equipment that can run off 120. It is rarer and more specialized thus it can be more costly to purchase a 120 then a 240 equivalent and if you ever need it serviced parts and people knowledgeable in the manufacturer may be more expensive/harder to find. Thats in addition to the fact a 120 appliance will consume more energy then its 240 equivalent thus costing you more money monthly
You can go back in forth endlessly on a message bored trying to find the best way or least expensive way to do things for home improvement projects but you’ll reach diminishing returns. The people most qualified to help you out are the professions in your area that have the option of looking at and examining your home.
Rick I think the “single-phase” thing is just a misconception that’s unfortunately entered into the common vernacular, and probably because there are parts of the country where household service is multi-phase instead of center-tapped (out east?). What I don’t know about those places, though, is whether the power company delivers all three phases to the house, or just two phases.
Actually, I’d like to know that. Is the phase balancing done in a three-phase box at each user, or does the utility planner carefully plan which consumers get which pair of phases?
As for the electrician upgrading the service, whether it’s a 120 volt service or 240 volt service shouldn’t matter. It’s just an extra wire in a cable that he’ll have to install anyway. Instead of $3.50 per foot of cable, it’s $4.50 per foot. Once it’s terminated at the top of the distribution panel, all of the other wiring will be identical (not electrically, of course, but as far as labor needed).
$1,400 sounds cheap. Very cheap. Unless you have an existing service that is extremely clean and offers flexibility in the existing wires. You should also make sure that the electrician is including updating all the existing grounding requirements. The main water supply should be bonded to the panel and the water meter needs to be jumpered out with with a bonding jumper, you must have a ground rod installed and there are a few other items that your local inspector must approve before giving the stamp of approval.
Make sure that the electrician is quoting the work “To Be Passed By Inspection”.
You don’t want him racking up charges because “the inspector wanted this or that”.
He should have all the information needed to make sure the installation is done in a workmanlike fashion and passes all codes (national, state, local).
Could the OP post photos of the existing service and the outdoor location of the proposed site.
New York City is the only place I’m aware of that uses two phases of a three phase system to deliver 208V to residences. I’m fairly certain that you only get two wires plus ground, and the system is balanced by delivering different combinations to different houses in the neighborhood (or possibly, in the case of multi-unit dwellings, to different apartments in the building).
To get back on the subject, 200 amps sounds like WAY overkill for a 900 square foot home. I’d ask the electrician if you could save anything by only installing 100 amp service. I had 100 amp service in one of my previous homes, with central A/C (don’t remember the size, but it was at least 2 tons, at 14 SEER) and never had a problem, even when running a 240V clothes dryer at the same time.
Thanks for the continued posts all. All the bits of info has helped me better understand how to see exactly what is going on.
I stopped by and the setup is currently:
3 wires run from the power pole to the top of the house onto a set of posts. All 3 wires also pass through to an adjacent house on the same lot (multi-unit property).
On the house I am working on, 2 of those 3 wires head into the house and hook up to the current panel/amp box. The third wire does not hook up to anything other than the posts at the top of the house, and pass through to the next unit on the lot.
Thinking about it some more with everyone’s replies, I have come up with 3 things I need to get done:
I need to get one 220-240v plug out so I can hook up some AC/Heating unit (or maybe an electric dryer if I choose to). I don’t think I need the main house wires to be 220-240v, just the one outlet setup to plug an AC/heating unit to. Probably will go to the side of the house into a shed.
Replacing the old panel. I am not certain if I will need 200amps, but I don’t see a big difference in labor/parts costs vs picking a 100amp panel? I intend to replace the panel regardless. The thing is at least 40 years old right now.
Relocating the panel to the adjacent (out of the way) wall so I can have some basic interior work done on the wall it currently sits on.
diagram:
|…^
| Panel sits here now (above)
|
|.< Want to move it here (left) so I can attach things/drill holes into to the wall it used to sit on without worrying about wires.
I will clarify with the electrician some of the details Uncommon Sense posted, particularly the importance of the quote being all work necessary to pass inspection.
The Mr. Slim style AC/Heat pump Running With Scissors mentioned looks very practical for my heating/AC needs. I searched a bit and Sanyo has a unit that has multiple outputs so I could hookup 3 interior fan/blower units to one central exterior unit. They appear to come in a variety of sizes, and seem to have smaller units to match with the smaller home.
I’m a little unclear about what you’re saying here…all power needs to go through your main panel (the one with the master breaker). You are allowed to have additional subpanels, but you cannot have more than one main breaker. This means at the very least that you would need to convert the main panel to 220/240.
I’m a little unsure what you mean by the “main house wires”. If you are talking about the wiring already inside the walls, this would not change in any event. 220/240 is generally only needed for the following items:
Electric clothes dryer
Electric range/oven/stovetop
Electric water heater
Central A/C and some higher capacity mini split systems
In ground swimming pool equipment
Outdoor hot tub
and then some more esoteric stuff that few homeowners have, like a workshop with commercial equipment
So once you had your panel installed, the electrician would connect all the existing outlets to the new breakers, then install new connections for the dryer and the A/C (note that if you’re considering a mini-split, you may not need 220).
I see a potential problem, though - moving your panel may instroduce a whole other can of worms. If the wiring is run to one position in your room, and you want to move it to another, the existing wires may not be long enough to run to the new position. This means that each wire would need to be extended (and extending romex is not as simple as extending an antenna wire - each splice needs to be inside a permanently mounted electrical box (depending on the size of the box chosen, you can have multiple splices inside).
It seems to me that the most sensible thing to do might be to have your electrician install a new 220V panel at the new location, then connect the old panel as a subpanel to the new box (I assume this is allowed in your jurisdiction - it is in mine). This would eliminate the work of having to move all the existing circuits, and you’d have a new panel with plenty of room if you ever need to add more outlets.
Update for all:
So it looks like upgrading the voltage isn’t going to happen. Someone from the city or power company came by to review our plans and it isn’t feasible. I can upgrade the panel if I need to for 200amps though, not sure if I need it (see way below for my questions on this)
Clarification of the original plan: The power line from the pole is 3 wires and they all come down to a connector on the roof of the house. However, only 2 wires run down into the individual power meter/(i think it has the main breaker there). Then from the power meter the two wires run into a panel with individual/smaller breakers.
The original goal of our plans was to eventually have the power company run all 3 wires through the utility company power meter so that we could properly use/record power usage for a 220v outlet.
According to the official person who came by today, the new rules or such state in order to modify the wires or power meter, we have to follow the current code… involving relocating the power meters for each unit on the multi-unit lot to one central location. Big $ it seems.
I will stick with using 110v and will now just look into heating/AC systems that can work off of that voltage. The mini systems does look good, I will explore that more.
Are there any disadvantages to putting in a higher capacity panel (200amp) vs replacing the current one at the same 100amps? i.e. efficiency losses or the such? I being a planner would think having more capacity and not using it is better than not having the capacity… that is if there are not losses in efficiency or the such for having this.
My cost/quote already includes replacing the panel so I was thinking go higher capacity if it isn’t costing me any more. Good/bad logic?
Maybe that’s an additional code where you are, but we have no requirement to have all power go through the main breaker in the distro box. In my previous house I had central AC put in, and it had its own main breaker outside. When I converted to the geo late last year, same thing. As I described in a previous post, this additional power is fed from the top of my main meter (i.e., doesn’t even pass through it), to another meter, to a main breaker/disconnect outside the house, to a sub panel next to the main panel inside the house, directly to my HVAC system. The previous house was nearly identical, except instead of a second meter there were jumper bars, and the tie to main meter was on the load side of the main meter (otherwise, free AC!).
I think if you’re stuck with 110V, you should go with the 200 amp panel. 200 amps at 110 V is the same power as 100 amps at 220 V. It’s not going to be exactly the same in practice, since the two legs in the 220 V case won’t be exactly balanced. But I wouldn’t expect 100 amp service for your case to be nearly the same as 100 amps with 220 V.
IANAElectrician (but I am an EE), so maybe there’s some reason why they’d be equivalent that I’m not seeing. Any electrician care to comment?
I was probably a little too broad in my claim. It’s probably one main breaker per meter (in fact, I own two 2-family rental homes that have two meters, and thus, two main breakers in each).
IANAE either, but the main reason they wouldn’t be equivalent is that almost all residential high-current applications require 220/240V. 200 amp service would improve his capacity for additional outlets, but not for more powerful appliances. In fact, his current 100 amp service at 120 is more or less equivalent to 50 amps at 220.
I’m not sure what you mean by “exactly balanced”. When you have a 220 V system (except in NYC, see above), the potential difference between the two “hot” legs is 240V, and it’s 120V between one leg and ground. There shouldn’t be any difference in the voltage between either hot/ground pair.
Balanced in terms of power consumption. If one 110 leg is using twice the power of the other leg, the first leg will start tripping the main breaker while the second leg is only pulling 50 amps.
My main point is that if an electrician’s (or posters in this thread) rule of thumb is that the OP would only need 100 amps for typical power consumption for a house of his size, that’s probably based on an implicit assumption of 220 V service. Since the OP only has 110, that rule of thumb likely isn’t valid. On the other hand, if the rule of thumb is that a house his size only needs 50 or 60 amp panel, he’s probably OK with a 100 amp panel (well, apart from the not being able to have a 220 volt circuit bit).
For anyone that comes across this thread in a similar situation.
Yes, there are workable solutions that will give you U.S. standard split-phase 220v, other than forcing your utility to comply with U.S. electrical code; it’s not your fault your fault your utility did your electrical supply half-assed.
*Any AC power system separate from your utility must be completely isolated from the power grid including grounding. Failure to do so at its worst could result in an electrical explosion; a 2 word phrase you never want to actually know the meaning of. Such a setup can handle only 220v loads or an imbalance will at best trip the breaker
**110v AC service means that another customer is using the other half of the split-phase; think of it as a tug of war in reverse (the goal is to keep the rope centered over the pit) too much pull on one side or the other and BOOM!, one side gets the pit and the other lands on their backs.
Term:
Load balance - Most U.S. residential electrical power, while referred to as 110v is in fact 220v split-phase; think it of like a piston pushing towards you and pulling away from you; by splitting it one half of the circuit slots in your breaker panel are sending electrons to you and the other half are pulling electrons from you, in both cases electrons are moving in the same direction allowing electronic devices to function. 220v is a special case (most often motor powered equipment) where the device requires the full force of both the push and pull to function properly. The balance comes in managing how much is using push vs. how much is using pull; in real world electrical use in a residence a fully balanced system never happens, the only way the grid functions is that the most of the imbalances cancel each other out and when they don’t, we get a power failure.
Fun shit:
Yes there actually electric costumers who only get ½ phase 110v power because their utility was unwilling to provide single/split-phase 220v power for the cost of the copper, in fact, someone came up the unique approach or recycling the meters as lamps; Google kwh meter lamp to see for yourself.
Also, I’m going to guess the reason he was told to relocate the electrical meters together - not construction code, but power company convenience. They have one service wire to two buildings, he said. Normally, this would be the case with a mutli-family dwelling, but because of history (from what I read) one wire from the pole goes to two cottages. (now houses)
For tidiness, if I were the power company, I would insist that if a service wire fromt he pole goes to multiple meters, they all be the same location for simplicity in reading them, or for cutting off power. No running around buildings to find other meters. Not a code requirement, but a power company convenience demand.
I have 2-phase 240V/120V service, 100A and run AC, dryer, oven, and car charger (I haven’t tried all full blast at once, but should work).