Electrical panel question

[cet]

Reading Kenny's thread I noticed there are quite a few electricians on here.

My main panel is a Seimens model with a 100 amp main breaker. If you are really interested it is this one from Home Depot (http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?D=941182&Ntt=941182&catalogId=10051&langId=-15&storeId=10051&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchall&recN=51 112048&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber)
I want to add a 90 or 100 amp sub-panel to this. Is it possible to just swap out the main breaker to a 200 amp breaker or do I need to swap out the whole panel?

[Cos]

^^ depends on the bus rating and the secondary sizes. Should probably have it looked at.

[cet]

Ugh. Thanks Cos. I have this horrible feeling that I'm going to have to replace the whole main panel which is a bigger job than I really wanted to do.

[Cos]

Originally posted by cet
Ugh. Thanks Cos. I have this horrible feeling that I'm going to have to replace the whole main panel which is a bigger job than I really wanted to do.


You may not have to, but depending on the age of the house I would hate to hear that your panel burned your house down because those werent checked. Or at least have low enough voltage that your tv stops working.

[cet]

The house is just over 2 years old.
I have no problem changing the panel, or paying someone to do so when I'm ready if that's what's needed. I'm just hoping it's not needed :)

[Cos]

Originally posted by cet
The house is just over 2 years old.
I have no problem changing the panel, or paying someone to do so when I'm ready if that's what's needed. I'm just hoping it's not needed :)

If it is that new the secondaries should be fine. Note SHOULD be fine.

I could be wrong but some panels may have a tie piont where they can be daisy chained. If that is the case the bus would be engineered to handle the load. I would bet you should be fine but still just get someone to come and look it over.

[cet]

I will thanks.
I won't be ready to do any electrical work for a few weeks yet and then I'll get someone in to check over everything I've done and check the panel out before I get the city inspector to come out.

[sillysod]

Uh... it is going to depend on your service.
If it's a house in Calgary you won't have a 200 amp service.

WTF do you need 200 amps for in a Calgary residence? Plan on growing something? ;)

[cet]

LOL no.
I don't really need the 200 amp main breaker I just want to make sure the sub doesn't blow the main panel.

Maybe I'll explain what I'm trying to do.

I'm developing the basement. In the basement I'll have a spare room, bathroom, family room and a home theater.

All of my electrical equipment (amps, cable boxes, etc.) for the home theater and for the other 2 tv's in the house will be kept in an equipment closet. So, in the equipment closet I want to put a sub panel that will handle all of the electrical for the home theater and the equipment closet.

If I'm able to go with a 60amp sub-panel then great, ill do that and just tie into the main.

[sillysod]

Im a controls electrican and have can't imagine a home theater that would pull more than 20 amps.

For the basement I don't understand why you wouldn't just run everything from the main panel (unless you have no room in it).

I have a 50 amp going to my garage, but that's because I have a 240 amp welder.

[Zero102]

You do not have a 200A main service, if you want to upgrade your panel to a 200A main breaker and add a 100A subpanel then you will need to call Enmax to upgrade your service and that will be HELLA expensive.

Best bet is to locate the equipment closet close to your panel and run each circuit from your main panel to the equipment closet. Often times this is cheaper than adding a subpanel. From what you described you likely only need 2 15A circuits to that closet anyways. To allow for future expansion (and for me under-estimating your power requirements) what I would do is get 2 double-pole 15A breakers and run 2 sets of 3-wire loomex to the closet where you would install split plugs, so you have 60A at 120V available in the closet. You would need to have power bars to connect all of your equipment but I doubt that would be a problem. This should be the peak of the "available power" vs "cost" chart.

To give any more meaningful advice it would be necessary to have the power requirements for all of the equipment, but really you can add that all up yourself. No way you need a 90/100A pony panel for your theater equipment.

[eblend]

Originally posted by cet
LOL no.
I don't really need the 200 amp main breaker I just want to make sure the sub doesn't blow the main panel.

Maybe I'll explain what I'm trying to do.

I'm developing the basement. In the basement I'll have a spare room, bathroom, family room and a home theater.

All of my electrical equipment (amps, cable boxes, etc.) for the home theater and for the other 2 tv's in the house will be kept in an equipment closet. So, in the equipment closet I want to put a sub panel that will handle all of the electrical for the home theater and the equipment closet.

If I'm able to go with a 60amp sub-panel then great, ill do that and just tie into the main.

I am doing the same with all my home theater stuff in the basement...but there is no need for a second panel..buy some 15A brakers, toss them into the existing panel and put a few outlets in your equipment closet.

[Cos]

Originally posted by sillysod
Im a controls electrican and have can't imagine a home theater that would pull more than 20 amps.

For the basement I don't understand why you wouldn't just run everything from the main panel (unless you have no room in it).

I have a 50 amp going to my garage, but that's because I have a 240 amp welder.

I understood it that he needed to upgrade the service size. If that isnt what you need, just use the existing spaces or if you do need more breakers then having a basic sub-panel should be no problem.

Your right however, if it is just a basement, unless your putting in an F1 simulator, heat pump or something similar you should be fine.

[cet]

Thanks for all the help guys.


Originally posted by sillysod
Im a controls electrican and have can't imagine a home theater that would pull more than 20 amps.

For the basement I don't understand why you wouldn't just run everything from the main panel (unless you have no room in it).

I have a 50 amp going to my garage, but that's because I have a 240 amp welder.

The reason I wanted to install a sub-was really just for convinience. I would have everything associated with the Home Theater in one room and easily be able to add outlets if needed.


Originally posted by Zero102
You do not have a 200A main service, if you want to upgrade your panel to a 200A main breaker and add a 100A subpanel then you will need to call Enmax to upgrade your service and that will be HELLA expensive.

Best bet is to locate the equipment closet close to your panel and run each circuit from your main panel to the equipment closet. Often times this is cheaper than adding a subpanel. From what you described you likely only need 2 15A circuits to that closet anyways. To allow for future expansion (and for me under-estimating your power requirements) what I would do is get 2 double-pole 15A breakers and run 2 sets of 3-wire loomex to the closet where you would install split plugs, so you have 60A at 120V available in the closet. You would need to have power bars to connect all of your equipment but I doubt that would be a problem. This should be the peak of the "available power" vs "cost" chart.

To give any more meaningful advice it would be necessary to have the power requirements for all of the equipment, but really you can add that all up yourself. No way you need a 90/100A pony panel for your theater equipment.

These are the circuits I had planned

1 circuit for general plugs (11 plugs)
1 20 amp circuit for lights (16 3" halogen lights @ 50 watt, 8 sconces @ 100 watt, 1 pot light @ 125 watt)
1 circuit for projector (probably dosn't need it's own but will get it)
1 circuit for 3 TV boxes 2 DVD players and network things needing power (switches, routers etc.), 2 multi chanel amplifiers and media storage device
These next amps are the biggest I would ever concider, however, I would like to be prepared for them incase I do go with them.
2 20 amp circuits for 1 big amplifier (Anthem P5, consumption on this is 2x1800W)
2 20 amp circuits for 2 smaller amplifiers and pre-amp (Anthem P2 consumption 1800W and a pro amp for the sub anywhere from 250-1000W depending on how I build the subs)


EDIT: I just called Enmax and I have 200 amp service to the house.

[garnet]

the only change there i notice is that you should split up your general plugs and lights into 2 circuits each, we typically will run a max of 6-7 plugs per line, same for lights, you have 25 lights intended? that's a ton of lights for a basement, but you'll want those slit up between 2-3 lines too

i've seen some honk'n A/V systems in the reno work i do, and even for those the most we've ever needed to install was 2 dedicated circuits with typically audio on the one (because of amps), and vid components on the other

your projector, especially if LCD will not draw anywhere near the need for it's own line

if you wanted, you could run 3 dedicated lines to the A/V closet for components, and then of course split up your other (plugs, lights) as per code, that'll supply all you'll ever need really



Originally posted by cet
Thanks for all the help guys.

The reason I wanted to install a sub-was really just for convinience. I would have everything associated with the Home Theater in one room and easily be able to add outlets if needed.

These are the circuits I had planned

1 circuit for general plugs (11 plugs)
1 20 amp circuit for lights (16 3" halogen lights @ 50 watt, 8 sconces @ 100 watt, 1 pot light @ 125 watt)
1 circuit for projector (probably dosn't need it's own but will get it)
1 circuit for 3 TV boxes 2 DVD players and network things needing power (switches, routers etc.), 2 multi chanel amplifiers and media storage device
These next amps are the biggest I would ever concider, however, I would like to be prepared for them incase I do go with them.
2 20 amp circuits for 1 big amplifier (Anthem P5, consumption on this is 2x1800W)
2 20 amp circuits for 2 smaller amplifiers and pre-amp (Anthem P2 consumption 1800W and a pro amp for the sub anywhere from 250-1000W depending on how I build the subs)


EDIT: I just called Enmax and I have 200 amp service to the house.

[cet]

Thanks for the reply garnet. I'm going to have to sit down and spend some more time planning all this out.

[garnet]

your welcome :)

for min. code go by 20A circuit = 10 duplex max, 15A circuit = 8 duplex max
but to be on the safe side of code we have a rule of thumb 20A circuit = 8-9 duplex max, and 15A circuit = 6-7 duplex max

how many additional or dedicated circuits you can run depends on your existing panel too, if there is enough spots for additional breakers there

you don't really need a sub-panel if you have the space on your board, and the additional cost wouldn't really be justified then anyways
also technically you should get a cert. sparky to install it, and a dev. permit to be safe

your basement, if unfinished to start, will have at least a few spaces left open on the panel for future development



Originally posted by cet
Thanks for the reply garnet. I'm going to have to sit down and spend some more time planning all this out.

[Jim Rome99]

I love how someone gave him advice to "check the secondaries".

The main breaker (or disconnect, as we electricians call it) is there as overcurrent protection. This means that it will stop 30000A from going through a #12 wire rated for 30A and melting the wires.

Go with what the guy above me said - for a home theatre, you won't be able to pull more than 20A in electricity unless you're hooking up a grow op to go along with it.

[Cos]

.

[cet]

Thanks for the help guys. I think I'm going to scrap the sub-panel idea and just run everything from the main panel. I'm pretty sure I have enough room.

[Zero102]

Originally posted by cet
Thanks for all the help guys.



The reason I wanted to install a sub-was really just for convinience. I would have everything associated with the Home Theater in one room and easily be able to add outlets if needed.



These are the circuits I had planned

1 circuit for general plugs (11 plugs)
1 20 amp circuit for lights (16 3" halogen lights @ 50 watt, 8 sconces @ 100 watt, 1 pot light @ 125 watt)
1 circuit for projector (probably dosn't need it's own but will get it)
1 circuit for 3 TV boxes 2 DVD players and network things needing power (switches, routers etc.), 2 multi chanel amplifiers and media storage device
These next amps are the biggest I would ever concider, however, I would like to be prepared for them incase I do go with them.
2 20 amp circuits for 1 big amplifier (Anthem P5, consumption on this is 2x1800W)
2 20 amp circuits for 2 smaller amplifiers and pre-amp (Anthem P2 consumption 1800W and a pro amp for the sub anywhere from 250-1000W depending on how I build the subs)


EDIT: I just called Enmax and I have 200 amp service to the house.


If you are pumping over 5kW to your speakers you will be deaf in no time and your neighbors will burn your house down while you sleep out of sheer rage.

No offense, but you may want to re-think your setup if you haven't already dropped the cash on this equipment. There is no way you can stand to be in the theater room when those amps are being run at even 25%. (Assuming their true output is as listed above) 200-400W of good clean sound is more than enough for a theater room (plus a good sub of course, I am talking full-range only)

[cet]

I don't have them at the moment and in all likelyhood I will go with something else. Anyway, it's not as bad as it seems. At 8 ohm they output 325W continuous power per chanel. However they they have the ability to run at 4 ohm and 2 ohm.

[Cos]

^^ 975 per channel? :eek:

[cet]

No, max they will do is 625/chanel at 2 ohm. The speakers I built are somewhere between 8 and 4 ohm.
I think the P5 is about $6500 though so i will probably go with a cheaper option, most likely something from Emotiva.

[garnet]

true, that is a great amount of watts for home A/V use, which is kool :thumbsup:

for shear bass and boom, then more wattage is king of course, but if you're like me, then for A/V i want crystal clear & smooth sound

personally, i would stick to no less than 8 ohm system, to keep good sound quality, as you decrease ohm to increase wattage at the amps, you will sacrifice sound definition quality

let us know how it goes


Originally posted by cet
I don't have them at the moment and in all likelyhood I will go with something else. Anyway, it's not as bad as it seems. At 8 ohm they output 325W continuous power per chanel. However they they have the ability to run at 4 ohm and 2 ohm.

[cet]

For the bass it will all depend on what kind of box I build. If I end up going with a folded horn type box I will only need about 300W but if I go with an LLT it will be about 1000W. I built my own speakers and had someone else build the cross-over for them. I can't remember what ohm they are.

I was planing out some circuits last night. I have 12 available slots on my main panel. I need 3 slots for 3 new circuits in the basement, outside the Home theater. I need 2 slots for the whole house surge protector. 1 slot for landscape lighting and 1 slot for future A/C. That's 7 of the 12 used for things other than the Home Theater so now I'm back to the decision of either using the half size breakers or running a sub-panel.

[Zero102]

There is nothing at all wrong with half-size breakers, this is exactly what they are there for :)

[cet]

Awesome, thanks. That solves that problem.

[Cos]

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