Upgrading service

[ljpower]

Hi. Our electical service panel and meter is connected at the garage. This was done years ago, prior to the house being brought in. The house feeds off of this service.

Now, we need to upgrade the house to a 200 amp service. The garage is 100amp.

How can we go about doing this? Would a splitter box be an option?

[Jeremy]

The 100 amp service is just 100 amps any way you split it up. There is more than one way to go about the upgrade. My preference would be to put a new 200amp service on the house and feed the garage from that, using the same wire that is feeding the house now. (Assuming the house is 100amp now and wire size is appropriate)

A qualified electrician will know what is best by looking at your situation, loads, distances etc.

[StevenT]

The best advice is to call in a licensed electrician to do whatever work is necessary. If you are not sure about what the electrician is telling you or the price, call in three electricians. By the time you have done this, you should have a pretty good idea about what they are trying to sell you.

By what you have described, you are going to need a new (larger) service installed. That means new (larger) wires feeding into your home/garage. Simply adding more panels to feed off the 100amps will not give you a "bigger" service, and inceasing the size of the main breaker is dangerous and wrong.

Be smart... call a real electrician in. This is not the work for a "handyman."

[hausdok]

What Jeremy said; have an electrician upgrade the existing house panel, service entrance cables and mast to 200 amps, bring the service drop from the pole directly to the weatherhead at the house, and then use the same cable currently being used as a feeder from the garage as the feeder for the panel in the garage. Have your electrician properly reconfigure as necessary the panel in the garage as a 100-amp sub-panel.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Eric B]

I'm curious, why do you want to have 200 amps? If by chance you've simply run out of breaker spaces you could go to a larger 100 amp panel or install a subpanel and avoid running new entrance conductors. I mention this just in case it had not yet been considered.

[Dale Baker]

Howdy Y'all

Eric - as you know a 100 amp service panel, now a days is really the minimum for folk's to use. With all the electric's folk's use now a days. It's a good idea to upgrade to a 200 amp service panel.