How much utility is enough?

[Drooopy]

I know that this question is going to be tough to answer without knowing all the loads, but I am trying to plan for the future. First some background.

Putting an offer in on 30 acres. Got a builder lined up to do the house and set me up with a 50'x100' pad for a shop. Going to do a pretty basic insulated steel building. Outdoor wood furnace and fans in the summer.

Current plan is to expand my side business there and finally have room to work on the 3 cars i am in the process of rebuilding, but high likelihood I will end up leasing some of it to my current employer. Our current shop is 3500 sqft and cannot expand without paying 18$/sqft/year. High rent for fab space. I could move then engineering and fab shops out to my land and keep final assembly and service in the current shop close to our customers.

Factoring 3000sqft of it leased with 6 people working in it full time. 2 welders, 1 fitter/ fabricator, 2 helpers and an engineer/foreman. Current machines are Millermatic 255, dynasty 280, powemax 45xp, some saws, 5hp compressor, drill press, small mill, tube bender and various other small tools. Will be putting in 2 lifts as well.

Am I crazy to think 200A of 240 single phase dedicated to the shop is enough? I wish I could get 3 phase, but doubt that is possible.

Thoughts on other things I should look out for when planning the shop are appreciated too.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[thegary]

I know that this question is going to be tough to answer without knowing all the loads, but I am trying to plan for the future. First some background.

Putting an offer in on 30 acres. Got a builder lined up to do the house and set me up with a 50'x100' pad for a shop. Going to do a pretty basic insulated steel building. Outdoor wood furnace and fans in the summer.

Current plan is to expand my side business there and finally have room to work on the 3 cars i am in the process of rebuilding, but high likelihood I will end up leasing some of it to my current employer. Our current shop is 3500 sqft and cannot expand without paying 18$/sqft/year. High rent for fab space. I could move then engineering and fab shops out to my land and keep final assembly and service in the current shop close to our customers.

Factoring 3000sqft of it leased with 6 people working in it full time. 2 welders, 1 fitter/ fabricator, 2 helpers and an engineer/foreman. Current machines are Millermatic 255, dynasty 280, powemax 45xp, some saws, 5hp compressor, drill press, small mill, tube bender and various other small tools. Will be putting in 2 lifts as well.

Am I crazy to think 200A of 240 single phase dedicated to the shop is enough? I wish I could get 3 phase, but doubt that is possible.

Thoughts on other things I should look out for when planning the shop are appreciated too.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

6 men working full time? 200 amp service is not going to be enough.

[TraditionalToolworks]

I agree with thegary, from what you described.

I am getting a 320 amp service to a shop/home I'm building on Tues. My plan is to use a 200 amp panel for the shop and a 200 amp panel for the home. The shop is going in the basement to build the home, later if I'm still ambitious enough I will build a detached shop/garage, and I have some leeway in how I split the power up.

Mine is also single phase, but I have a Phase Perfect PT-355 which will supply 55 amps of continuous 3 phase, but it requires 100 amps. I will have the other 100 amps on that panel for single phase 120v and 240v in the shop.

I'm the only person that will be using the shop and I most often only use 1 machine at a time, although I could be running dust collection at the same time as another machine.

It might be possible to have 6 people in your shop and get by if you're careful. Problem is that if you have both your welders going, that's about 90 amps most likely, a 5HP compressor is another 30 amps, so depending on all that is running at any given time the power could be stretched.

Is this 200 amp service dedicated to your shop? Any house on this property or is this solely for a shop?

[scsmith42]

See if you have 3 phase available at the road. If so I'd suggest a 400A 480 service. You can step it down inside as needed, but having 480 available increases your equipment selection exponentially.

Recover the costs to bring in service with your rental fees to your company.

[TraditionalToolworks]

See if you have 3 phase available at the road.

Not a bad suggestion, but check the pricing. In my case I have 3 phase on the pole across from my property, but the power company wanted me to pay for the transformer that I would need to buy from them at the tune of $15k. In addition the cost on minimum per month service is substantially higher, although I wasn't given exact numbers, the power company representative assured me it was substantially higher.

My next option was a 400 amp continuous single phase service, but I would need to pay for the transformer on that as well, but to the tune of $5k.

My next option and the one I picked was a 320 amp continuous single phase service, or what is known as a 400 amp non-continuous. In this case they pay for the transformer and most all the hookup fees, I'm told I will only be charged $75 hookup fee, I'll find out next Tues. for certain. I'm told I don't need to be at the property, that they can hook it up and will leave the main breaker off at the telephone pole I had installed. There are actually 2 disconnects there I believe, but haven't actually looked at it and inspected anything myself. Each disconnect is a 200 amp disconnect from the meter. This is a modern style meter panel which I can feed solar back into the grid to offset my costs without having to store in batteries. This is pretty common nowadays, most all panels allow for that.

[12345678910]

If you're going to lease space to your work.

Then build a separate space for that.
Don't mix your tools and stuff with theirs.
Don't mix your hydro bill with theirs.

What if a welder smokes, or everything gets stolen. Who held insurance ?


Who gets screwed ?
Make sure it's not you.
Find a lawyer that does commercial real estate and so on.

[Oscar]

See if you have 3 phase available at the road. If so I'd suggest a 400A 480 service. .

That's like 1.21 gigawatts of capacity! ok, more like 330kW, but still!

[Drooopy]

Thank you for all the replies!

The 200A service would be dedicated to the shop with another 200A service for the house.

According to my builder, the power company prefers to bring in multiple 200A feeds vs any larger feeds. Doesnt mean they wont do it. Just $$$.

As for separation of mine vs theirs, I would put up a wall between the rented area and my area, but mixing of assets is already an issue. I own about 60% of the tools currently in the shop. My guys all have their own small hand tools, but the mill, plasma, genny welding trailer, couple multimatics, portabands and many other tools are mine.

My boss, who is the owner, has allowed me to use the shop for any personal project I wanted over the years and I have kept buying tools for them. Unfortunately i dont have anywhere at home currently to keep them and we no longer have space in the shop for personal projects. My tools however have just become part of the shop.

All of my tools are marked though and I am lucky to have a great group of guys at this point who actually respect my stuff and take great care of it. Nothing says that wont change though.

I do agree that I will need to get some clearer lines on insurance, power usage and such though. My current business insurance and umbrella cover my stuff in his shop but will obviously need to adjust for me having a shop.

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[smithdoor]

I used and own from 100 amp 240 volt single to 400 amp 480 volt three phase.

You need to size by number employees you planning.

I found that I could have 2 welders going, 2 lathes,2 drilling and one painting all at the same time on a 125 amp 240 volt single phase.

The 400 amp 480 volt gives lot of power but it costly in 1985 the meter box was $2,500 pluss $2,000 other parts need. Then the labor need for insulation.

A large generator was cheaper.

Dave

I know that this question is going to be tough to answer without knowing all the loads, but I am trying to plan for the future. First some background.

Putting an offer in on 30 acres. Got a builder lined up to do the house and set me up with a 50'x100' pad for a shop. Going to do a pretty basic insulated steel building. Outdoor wood furnace and fans in the summer.

Current plan is to expand my side business there and finally have room to work on the 3 cars i am in the process of rebuilding, but high likelihood I will end up leasing some of it to my current employer. Our current shop is 3500 sqft and cannot expand without paying 18$/sqft/year. High rent for fab space. I could move then engineering and fab shops out to my land and keep final assembly and service in the current shop close to our customers.

Factoring 3000sqft of it leased with 6 people working in it full time. 2 welders, 1 fitter/ fabricator, 2 helpers and an engineer/foreman. Current machines are Millermatic 255, dynasty 280, powemax 45xp, some saws, 5hp compressor, drill press, small mill, tube bender and various other small tools. Will be putting in 2 lifts as well.

Am I crazy to think 200A of 240 single phase dedicated to the shop is enough? I wish I could get 3 phase, but doubt that is possible.

Thoughts on other things I should look out for when planning the shop are appreciated too.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Capt B]

Thank you for all the replies!

The 200A service would be dedicated to the shop with another 200A service for the house.

According to my builder, the power company prefers to bring in multiple 200A feeds vs any larger feeds. Doesnt mean they wont do it. Just $$$.

As for separation of mine vs theirs, I would put up a wall between the rented area and my area, but mixing of assets is already an issue. I own about 60% of the tools currently in the shop. My guys all have their own small hand tools, but the mill, plasma, genny welding trailer, couple multimatics, portabands and many other tools are mine.

My boss, who is the owner, has allowed me to use the shop for any personal project I wanted over the years and I have kept buying tools for them. Unfortunately i dont have anywhere at home currently to keep them and we no longer have space in the shop for personal projects. My tools however have just become part of the shop.

All of my tools are marked though and I am lucky to have a great group of guys at this point who actually respect my stuff and take great care of it. Nothing says that wont change though.

I do agree that I will need to get some clearer lines on insurance, power usage and such though. My current business insurance and umbrella cover my stuff in his shop but will obviously need to adjust for me having a shop.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

I am in a very similar situation as you with my employer. I own 90% of the tools in the shop. The lathe, mill, welders, saws, torches, etc. are all mine. My guys own there own hand tools cordless drills etc. I am also the only one who uses the heavy equipment so really isn't an issue. I have had a couple of cordless tools dropped in the water by employees but the owner replaced them so no issue. We also had a fire in our shop a couple of years ago that the fire department suspected was started by one of my 60-volt Dewalt batteries but couldn't prove it for sure. It stayed relatively contained mostly smoke damage but I lost around 15k in tools that the owners' insurance replaced. Luckily about 6 months before the fire I took pictures and made an inventory of my tools it made the claim process a whole lot easier. Which reminds me I definitely need to update that list. I feel I am well compensated for what I provide and when I eventually retire or leave I will have all the tools I need to start my own shop so I like the arrangement.

[RonL]

If three phase is available I would consider a 208 Wye service. Any hot to neutral is 120 single phase. Any two hots is 208 single phase. Three hots is , of course, three phase. Anything that runs with a motor will run more efficiently on three phase.
If I wanted three phase at my property in the mountains the power company would have installed it. I just would have had to pay to run the three phase lines ten miles up the mountain!

Many of the dairy farms are wired for 208 Wye three phase.

[henry42]

If most of the tools are yours and now the space will also be yours why hasn't your "boss" suggested a partnership. It certainly isn't fair for you to be bankrolling the operation while he collects all of the profits. You'd still be entitled to your wages but you'd also should be sharing the profits.

What does he bring to the table?

[smithdoor]

You can put in a 400amp 240 volt single phase panel.
The hook-up cost is less.
The purchase of breaks are a lot lower in price.

Some power companies will charge for changing the transformer too.
Three phase they will charge by pole and by foot.

That is why I say sometimes it cheeper to buy a big generator and run it

Dave

I know that this question is going to be tough to answer without knowing all the loads, but I am trying to plan for the future. First some background.

Putting an offer in on 30 acres. Got a builder lined up to do the house and set me up with a 50'x100' pad for a shop. Going to do a pretty basic insulated steel building. Outdoor wood furnace and fans in the summer.

Current plan is to expand my side business there and finally have room to work on the 3 cars i am in the process of rebuilding, but high likelihood I will end up leasing some of it to my current employer. Our current shop is 3500 sqft and cannot expand without paying 18$/sqft/year. High rent for fab space. I could move then engineering and fab shops out to my land and keep final assembly and service in the current shop close to our customers.

Factoring 3000sqft of it leased with 6 people working in it full time. 2 welders, 1 fitter/ fabricator, 2 helpers and an engineer/foreman. Current machines are Millermatic 255, dynasty 280, powemax 45xp, some saws, 5hp compressor, drill press, small mill, tube bender and various other small tools. Will be putting in 2 lifts as well.

Am I crazy to think 200A of 240 single phase dedicated to the shop is enough? I wish I could get 3 phase, but doubt that is possible.

Thoughts on other things I should look out for when planning the shop are appreciated too.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[smithdoor]

Add to last post
I had location where power company would charge almost $10,000 for 3 phase power but they would give 480 volt single phase at no cost do to having to run the wire to each pole.

Dave

[Kevin_Essiambre]

@Drooopy your location says "NOVA", is that Nova Scotia?

If so, I'd probably see if you could get 200 amp, 600 volt 3 phase for the shop.

With that many guys and machines, 200 amps single phase wouldn't be enough (both in my opinion and according to my ontario code, without doing a load calculation...).

A load calculation would tell you how large of a service you'd need.

With 347/600, you could do all 347 volt lighting, which is handy for long wire runs in big shops.

You could install a small transformer to drop the 600 down to 3 phase 120/208 or single phase 120/240

Sent from my new phone. Autocorrect may have changed stuff.

[Drooopy]

@Drooopy your location says "NOVA", is that Nova Scotia?

If so, I'd probably see if you could get 200 amp, 600 volt 3 phase for the shop.

With that many guys and machines, 200 amps single phase wouldn't be enough (both in my opinion and according to my ontario code, without doing a load calculation...).

A load calculation would tell you how large of a service you'd need.

With 347/600, you could do all 347 volt lighting, which is handy for long wire runs in big shops.

You could install a small transformer to drop the 600 down to 3 phase 120/208 or single phase 120/240

Sent from my new phone. Autocorrect may have changed stuff.

NOVA as in Northern Virginia. 480 is the more common power supply here. If I could get 200A of 480 that would be great. I dont really know of anyone locally actually getting 208 distribution around here. Always see 480 with a transformer.

In terms of code, we are allowed 80% of feed capacity. That would give me 160A of 240 available for actual use.

Our current shop has 400A of 208, 3ph but has all of our office space and server load as well. I should install a monitor to determine how much we actually use there as a benchmark.

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[thegary]

From what you state in your opening post I would figure on 50 amps per worker in the rental space. Forget about 3 phase , buy a phase perfect 3 phase converter to power any none single phase equipment. Your electric bill will thank you. If your power company can bring in 2 200 amp services to the one building you could run one service for the rental side and one for your personal space. The service for your personal space can easily operate on a 100 amps of the 200 amp service then run 100 amps into the phase perfect converter and run that over to the rental space. It could be used to run any 3 phase equipment in the rental space and could be used to operate the lights . Bill both power meters to the rental side.

The 3 phase power could run the compressor, any mills ,lathes. Iron worker, rolls and shears you get .

I have had a one man shop for 25 years and have a 60 amp service to it. I have never had a main breaker trip. I have a phase perfect converter that runs a 2hp milling machine, a 7hp lathe , and a 3hp belt sander. One person can only run one machine at a time so I have a 60 amp breaker that feeds my phase perfect converter so I can divert all power to 3 phase if needed.

Just a thought to consider.

If you think you will need more than 100 amps for 3 phase then devote one service to a phase perfect converter and one to single phase and use them for both shops.

Remember you will need a good exhaust system in the shop if you are going to be doing a lot of welding. Even 3000 sq ft fills with smoke fast. The mens lungs will thank you. If you have even one man welding all six will be breathing in the contaminants in the air.

I worked in a large shop years ago that had no exhaust in it. There were 100 men working in that shop but I was the only welder. I could fill that whole shop with a smoky haz when doing some heavy welding. i would guess that shop was 30,000 sq. ft. at least if not bigger. After a few times of that I went into the foundry area to do any heavy welding .

[Kevin_Essiambre]

NOVA as in Northern Virginia. 480 is the more common power supply here. If I could get 200A of 480 that would be great. I dont really know of anyone locally actually getting 208 distribution around here. Always see 480 with a transformer.

I should have known it wasn't Canada.

Canada doesn't use 480, hence my 600.
USA uses 480, most have never heard of 600 down there.

I stick with my my post though, 200 amps at 480 volts would be what I would try to get.

Work the price of the power into the rental of the space, considering the cost will likely be way higher than single phase.

If this was a fully personal use only shop, I'd get 320/400 amp single phase for the shop, and feed the house from the shop.

Sent from my new phone. Autocorrect may have changed stuff.

[Drooopy]

I should have known it wasn't Canada.

Canada doesn't use 480, hence my 600.
USA uses 480, most have never heard of 600 down there.

I stick with my my post though, 200 amps at 480 volts would be what I would try to get.

Work the price of the power into the rental of the space, considering the cost will likely be way higher than single phase.

If this was a fully personal use only shop, I'd get 320/400 amp single phase for the shop, and feed the house from the shop.

Sent from my new phone. Autocorrect may have changed stuff.

I have definitely used 600 vac. One of the major data center companies down here was set on using 600 for years before they went to 4160 and 480. I installed many 600 to 208 transformers in equipment we built.

Thanks for the info on the phase perfect. Have not used them before. More familiar with using VFDs for motor loads. Will definitely be looking into one if I cannot get 3 phase at a reasonable price.

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[scsmith42]

PhasePerfect is reputedly the Cadillac of phase converters. Expensive, but from what I'm told it's the best.

[thegary]

PhasePerfect is reputedly the Cadillac of phase converters. Expensive, but from what I'm told it's the best.

Also the most efficient converter made. What it costs extra in price it will repay you in smaller electric bills. Mine is rated for 30 hp although I do not have enough power going to it to run 30hp. I would need to have 100 amps devoted to it to run its full capacity. I purchased it used for $1000 and was not going to quibble that it was larger than I needed. I believe a new one the same size is about $4500.

The other plus to them is that they can run anything 3 phase with no exceptions. The only draw back I have seen is that there is a high pitched squeal that is given off by the converter . I finally put it in a storage room so that I could not hear it. It uses 400watts of power when not making any power . I turn it off when I do not need 3 phase power and over night. I just flip the disconnect on when I want 3 phase. Any other converter uses many times more power wether it is doing any work or not.

[smithdoor]

Three phase is nice
But the cost can be great to get to your place.
Like 200 amp 240 volt is lowest cost.

Dave

I know that this question is going to be tough to answer without knowing all the loads, but I am trying to plan for the future. First some background.

Putting an offer in on 30 acres. Got a builder lined up to do the house and set me up with a 50'x100' pad for a shop. Going to do a pretty basic insulated steel building. Outdoor wood furnace and fans in the summer.

Current plan is to expand my side business there and finally have room to work on the 3 cars i am in the process of rebuilding, but high likelihood I will end up leasing some of it to my current employer. Our current shop is 3500 sqft and cannot expand without paying 18$/sqft/year. High rent for fab space. I could move then engineering and fab shops out to my land and keep final assembly and service in the current shop close to our customers.

Factoring 3000sqft of it leased with 6 people working in it full time. 2 welders, 1 fitter/ fabricator, 2 helpers and an engineer/foreman. Current machines are Millermatic 255, dynasty 280, powemax 45xp, some saws, 5hp compressor, drill press, small mill, tube bender and various other small tools. Will be putting in 2 lifts as well.

Am I crazy to think 200A of 240 single phase dedicated to the shop is enough? I wish I could get 3 phase, but doubt that is possible.

Thoughts on other things I should look out for when planning the shop are appreciated too.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[TraditionalToolworks]

Also the most efficient converter made. What it costs extra in price it will repay you in smaller electric bills. Mine is rated for 30 hp although I do not have enough power going to it to run 30hp. I would need to have 100 amps devoted to it to run its full capacity. I purchased it used for $1000 and was not going to quibble that it was larger than I needed. I believe a new one the same size is about $4500.

Not to dispute you Gary, but I think you're wrong on the pricing and possibly on the power requirements. I have a PT-355 I bought used, they used to sell for about $5200, I bought mine used for $2500. It will only start a 20HP, and it requires 100 amps (I think it might be 95 as listed).

Do you have the older blue model, or do you have the PT series?

The other plus to them is that they can run anything 3 phase with no exceptions.

I've heard them referred to and I've even referred to them as "pure 3 phase". The reason is when you run an RPC you always get the 3rd leg which is produced by the idler motor as being different than the other 2 legs which come into the converter from the service. This doesn't happen with the Phase Perfect, all 3 legs are equal and why so many people use them for CNCs. Many CNCs are picky on power, especially the Japanese models that were originally designed for use on 100v/50cycles in Japan. The guy I bought my Phase Perfect from only used it for a month, he didn't realize his building actually had 3 phase... but he had to end up getting a transformer to run his CNC reliably on the 3 phase coming from the power company. I thought the 30HP units needed about 120 amps, but I could be wrong.

And yes, they do have a slight squeal to them, but not anything like an the hum of an idler motor on an RPC. I also plan to enclose mine to eliminate that noise. A friend of mine has his like that and you can't even hear it. Like many things in life, buy once cry once...

FWIW, VFDs have a worse squeal, but coming from the motor on the machine, kind of odd also...

[smithdoor]

Most of 600volt is for very large motors and manufacturring use 480 volt in the USA.
The only time I seen 600 volt motor is wind motor for orange trees and over 100 hp pumps in farming.

Dave

I should have known it wasn't Canada.

Canada doesn't use 480, hence my 600.
USA uses 480, most have never heard of 600 down there.

I stick with my my post though, 200 amps at 480 volts would be what I would try to get.

Work the price of the power into the rental of the space, considering the cost will likely be way higher than single phase.

If this was a fully personal use only shop, I'd get 320/400 amp single phase for the shop, and feed the house from the shop.

Sent from my new phone. Autocorrect may have changed stuff.

[thegary]

Not to dispute you Gary, but I think you're wrong on the pricing and possibly on the power requirements. I have a PT-355 I bought used, they used to sell for about $5200, I bought mine used for $2500. It will only start a 20HP, and it requires 100 amps (I think it might be 95 as listed).

Do you have the older blue model, or do you have the PT series?



I've heard them referred to and I've even referred to them as "pure 3 phase". The reason is when you run an RPC you always get the 3rd leg which is produced by the idler motor as being different than the other 2 legs which come into the converter from the service. This doesn't happen with the Phase Perfect, all 3 legs are equal and why so many people use them for CNCs. Many CNCs are picky on power, especially the Japanese models that were originally designed for use on 100v/50cycles in Japan. The guy I bought my Phase Perfect from only used it for a month, he didn't realize his building actually had 3 phase... but he had to end up getting a transformer to run his CNC reliably on the 3 phase coming from the power company. I thought the 30HP units needed about 120 amps, but I could be wrong.

And yes, they do have a slight squeal to them, but not anything like an the hum of an idler motor on an RPC. I also plan to enclose mine to eliminate that noise. A friend of mine has his like that and you can't even hear it. Like many things in life, buy once cry once...

FWIW, VFDs have a worse squeal, but coming from the motor on the machine, kind of odd also...

Mine is one of the old blue ones. you are probably right on it needing 120 amps for full capacity. I never really looked into it because I only have a 60 amp service so it did not matter to me. The squeal is tolerable but annoying so I put it in the storage side of my shop right beside my compressor.

I believe the phase perfect has a cleaner sign wave than 3 phase from the power company. Mine was probably 10 years old when I got it but had been sitting unused for 5 years. I could probably get another one from the same place if I wanted to. They had 3 of them and 2 are still sitting in their old unused building. I was thinking of getting them to resell but they might want to keep one in there incase they rent out the building. It is the only place I have ever seen a 400 amp 240v single phase service in a building.

I have not kept up with costs of new ones. The guy I got mine from said he paid $3500 each for his at the time. All I know is that it was a no brainer to snap it up. I probably would not sell mine for less than $2500 when ever I decide I am too old to want to use it anymore.