Running electric from the meter

The electric line for two of our Cabins is underground, and about 3/4 mile away from the meter box. It was put in by previous owner so I do not know how he did it, but he (like you) wanted no one on his property - so he had the meter box set on edge where he put the main gate in. We have owned it for 6 years now with no problems at all. When we put in a new well and two outside flood lights (one with an outlet on the bottom hooked to a post), all that wire was run directly out of the meter box........which is hooked (somehow) into the main gray thing that belongs to the Elec Co.

Sorry to ramble on........main point I wanted to say is that our meter box / gray box is 3/4 mile from the Cabins and it works just fine.

why not let them come onto your property i have power lines going through mine and its not like they come and have a party or anything. i have lived here all my life which is 33 years and i can count on one hand how many times the power company had to come onto the place to fix something. except to read the meter which comes along with the service, but like said above now its automated and its read through the wires back to their sub station which is 10 miles away.

I'm guessing wire big enough to run it under ground now is going to cost 2.50 or more a foot times 4 so that would be around $11 per foot at least. it doesnt make since to do what your talking about when the power company will put it right to where you need it free of charge.

I am going through this right now.

What my electric company did for me was put in a new power pole and I had to dig the 350ft trench to the house and put in the 3" conduit and 2 junction boxes. I also had to put the pull strings in the conduit for the wire pulling.

They are supplying the wire and pulling it. What they wouldn't do was allow me to have the meter at the street. But considering the cost of the wire I can deal with that and, they will need to deal with the dogs when they come to read it.

__________________
Bob D. in FL

"Good decisions are made from knowledge, not from numbers" - Plato

BobCat Acres - blog.bobcatacres.com
home of Chickens, Ducks, Turkeys, Goats, Sheep, and Bunnies

For me, it was not having them on the property, but the actual right of way that I had problems with. That is 10 feet on all sides of the line, so at least 20 feet wide that must stay clear. I have six acres, but it is only 208 feet wide by 1253 feet long. A 20ft wide swath cut out of the trees between the road and my house would leave the house exposed to the road, and that is not at all what I want. By having the meter on the road, and doing the rest myself I was able to leave a smaller footprint, and put a dogleg in the run to keep the house hidden.

At least locally it is a two-step process. The builder gets a permit and then installs a temporary pole. It is smaller and has the weatherhead, meter box and panel box, under which is usually a four-plug outdoor receptacle. Contractors usually have their own. Co-op then provides power to the temporary pole. Building then uses receptacle until the inside meter box is installed. At that point the system will be changed to permanent. Am told the Co-op will install one pole and X number of feet of wire at no additional charge.

Would you know how big the main breaker is in your box in the house? 50, 60, 100, 200 amp?

Would you know if there is a transformer on each end, one by the meter, one by your house, to run the power down thiner wires? (The transformer by meter steps power back up to high voltage, so lower amps.Transformer by house steps it back down to 120/240.)

3/4 mile of 120/240 volt wire at 100+ amp would be an exceptional thing!

--->Paul

Your first step is to figure out what you are going to have on your place, house, shop, well, etc. Normally a 200 A. service will be sufficient. Second step:contact the POCO and have them send their engineer out for a look see. Then talk to a couple of electricians and see if they will help you do as much as you are qualified for. I work with homeowners all the time, recently to install a 750 foot service down from the meter to a boat dock. The owner and his two sons installed the cable in conduit, I set up the reel of wire and instructed, than I installed the pipe into the boxes and made the terminations.
Everybody won. This is a place to hire a professional. A homeowner can install all the receptacles they want, switches and light fixtures, but the service entrance is the heart of the wiring system and ignorance, assumptions and guessing will cause headaches in the middle of a winter night.

Our future building site is 1/4 mile from the closest pole. Quote from the local power company was 9k-10k for above ground. If anyone else within 5 years hooks up to the line they will be assessed a portion of that bill and we get a credit. Didn't want to pay $150 for the engineer to come out at this early date so this was only ballpark. When the time comes we will look at underground as well.

WM you mean to tell me that the POCO will charge you $ 150 just to send their engineer out to look at a place where you want 'lectric installed so that you can be forever indentured to paying them money each month??? I hate monoplies. The price they want to run in power will buy a deluxe photovoltaic system that won't send you a bill each month, and it won't ever send in a crew of non-english speaking folks to spray everything in sight with the herbicide du jour. I have friends who live off the grid and they have everything except a drier. They have a big table saw in the shop which the inverter is sized to carry. It can be done.

wow, i am very greatfull for all the quick replies. My computer broke shortly after posting this and i am temporarily using the local library.

Jims-This is a very rural county with less than 10,000 people and only 1 stoplight in the entire county. The local electric company still reads meters by people power.

Michael smith-I am fairly confident that they will allow me to put it at the edge of my property, i have seen it a few times at other residences in the area. I understand i will be responsible for everything after the meter.

Hunter-the electric company told me they will not hook up power until a well is drilled on the property. The only local codes or regulations are that everything is a hud minimum, which i have been told is, electric,water and septic. Judging by a few properties in the area, there are NO building codes.

The local electric company here is actually a coop, and it seems to be pretty good about getting power to people relatively inexpensively. They will pay the first 1100 dollars of expense. A lady their told me that judging from where existing lines are that i would pretty much not have to pay a dime to have the electric brought 200 feet onto my property by overhead line. Except they ask for a ten foot easement on either side of the line.

Yuccaflats-do you know what guage wire is needed for that run of 200 feet for 200 amps?

200 amps will definetly be run to the house. Is it ok to also run another line to a separate breaker panel for the well and garage with its own 200 amp line? Ok, nevermind it looks like handyman just answered that question for me.

Rowdy-This is is my main concern also, i only have 4 acres and a 20 foot path down the middle takes up lots of usable space.

Thanks everybody for your help, i can now contact some local electricians, the person at the power company is out of town for the next three weeks so everything on that end is put on hold.

I would not know that! I know the "box" thing on the wall of the Cabin is very big and when we had an electrician check it out he said "what the heck!" and explained the box was huge for a house. There is nothing that I know of underground, just fat black wire, and there is nothing....no equipment looking things.....at the gate. There is a board "wall" type piece of wall for the meter box to hook to, it was built by previous owner, there is a thick gray post going from that down into the ground, and I suppose the wire from the main electric post goes into the meter through that gray pipe? There are no other wires, that I see. When we had an outside light put down by that gate, the electrician (the one who said the breaker box at the Cabin was huge) just somehow (I did not watch....but guess I should have.....) got a wire out of that gray pipe? Or out of the meter? At least I know the electricity for the outside light goes across the road and into something on that post/piece of board with the meter on it.

I am sorry not to be of more help. The Cabin is through the woods but if it will help you to know more then I could go over there late on Tuesday and try to see.....just tell me what I am looking for?

About not wanting the electric man on the property.......the previous owner put the meter at the gate since it was he would first did not want the meter reader on the property BUT since I have seen how the meter reader drives, I don't want him up here either. He once kicked at one of my dogs too. Now he has some wand that he points at our house and he does not come up here but he still has to drive by my main gate to get to the next ridge. I don't want him around here since he is mean and drives bad.

Suggestion, don't install more power capacity than you really need. The reason for it being $5K is probably that it is a lot of capacity. The electrical needs of modern equipment are going _down_ not up. Modern equipment is more efficient. If you're going to need a welder, figure it in, but don't waste money on over capacity. $5K is almost as much as we've spent building our entire house. I'm not about to spend money on capacity I will never use.

__________________
SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Our local co-op upgraded to the self reading meters about 5 years ago... it sends the usage info over the powerlines... before that a meter reader came out... half the time, the other half the road was impassable and he'd just 'guess'.

They give us ~1200' above ground for free... a little less underground wire for free. So, why not allow them there r.o.w. for underground service, right up to your house... their underground line will have as small a footprint as one you install yourself... and you'll save a couple thousand bucks.

Unless you're growing timber, there's no loss of usable land, if you go with overhead lines. Part of my orchard is under the electric wires...

O, a biggie!!!!!!!! You have never had so much fun in your life as the day you start trying to run extremely large gauge wire through some conduit... even if you jump up an extra inch on conduit size, you're still gonna have some 'fun' getting it all in the conduit...

__________________
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming