service at barn, sub at house?

1826 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by AllanJ, Apr 22, 2011

dick_linn

Discussion Starter · Apr 20, 2011

I have an unusual situation. I'm preparing to connect power to the premises for the first time. The Main disconnect and point of entry will be at the pole barn 40 ft from the power lines. The house, 200ft away from the barn and 240 ft from the pole, will be fed from the panel installed in the barn via 4 conductor 4ought Al already in place. Question is, do I need to install a full 30 breaker service panel at the barn where I don't need all those circuits?
And does the house panel then treated as a "subpanel" and wired accordingly?
Thanks for the help,
Dick

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AllanJ

· #2 · Apr 20, 2011 (Edited)

Whatever panel holds the main disconnect switch or breaker has to be rated for 200 amps or whatever your service is. They do make "plain" disconnect switch boxes where you can run a conduit to a smaller subpanel with top breaker down below and also run the cable to feed the power to the main house.

In your case, yes, your "main" panel in the house is a subpanel and must have grounds and neutrals separated.

4ought = OOOO

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AllanJ

· #5 · Apr 22, 2011

Since you already have the cable in place between the house and the barn, there is much less incentive to have the power company put in a separate service for the house.

If you went with the trailer panel, you could add a subpanel for the barn off of the trailer panel if you outgrew it

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AllanJ

· #7 · Apr 22, 2011

According to my calculations the 4/O aluminum will handle 240 volts @ 200 amps at 3% voltage drop.

The voltage drop may be greater, percentage wise, for 120 volt loads if all 200 amps are drawn on one side of the 120/240 volt service and significantly less on the other side. Maximum of 6% (the same 7 volt drop) for 200 amps drawn on one side and zero amps on the other side but this is probably impossible because some of the larger loads are 240 volt.

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