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RE: Upgrading power for new garage

To: jdrush@enter.net, shop-talk@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Upgrading power for new garage
From: jmark.vanscoter@amd.com
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 14:10:35 -0500
I had responded to Larry directly. Here is my thoughts, and I still believe 
they are correct.


IMO, spend the money only if:
Your house has less than 200AMP service.
or
You use electric heat.
or
You plan to USE a really BIG welder at high capacity.

The rest of the stuff listed is really minimal. It would be difficult to use
a continuous 70 AMP for everything running at once.

$800 buys quite a few tools. . .

Mark V.S. in Austin, TX

P.S. AC, lift, compressor are all 15 amp @110V or less, unless you are talking 
commercial heavy duty equipment. Buy more insulation and the AC has less work 
to do.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rush [mailto:jdrush@enter.net]

I'm surprised no one replied to you. Here's my take after discussing
similar issues with my electrician friends.

Larry_Spector@NAI.com wrote:
> 
> I'm in the process of having a second garage bay added (attached to my
> house), and I need to have the electric meter moved. While I'm doing all of
> this, should I go ahead and get the service upgraded and have a second 200
> amp panel put in the garage (+$820)?

Yes. More capacity in and around the box gives you more protection
against overloads and fires even if you never expect to use a lot of
power hungry stuff at the same time.

> I'm planning to install a lift, probably window A/C, compressor, heat of
> some sort...

All power hogs. If you plan to use any simultaneously, go for the
upgrade.

> If I don't upgrade the service, I'll go with a subpanel instead.

A subpanel probably isn't a good solution. All the juice still has to go
though the main panel and is still subject to the limitations therein. To
my mind it provides a false sense of security. "All the new circuits are
breaker protected, what can go wrong?" This ignores what happened
upstream of the breakers. A better solution that is still cheaper than
200 amp service is a power splitter sold be someone (Square D?) that
splits the incoming lead to two breaker boxes. Now each box is doing its
protection job at its rated capacity.

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