ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Mobile Home Services around here

Every new trailer brought in to this trailer park has a 200+ amp panel. Every pedestal, however, is rated at 100 amps by the POCO, and they aren't upgraded. I think the only pedestals that have been replaced were ones that were in the way of the new doublewide they were going to feed, and some ones that were hit by a guy pulling too far up in his driveway. Those are 200amp rated, but I don't believe they upgraded the underground service. Some of these places are "All electric," following a recent scam by management refusing to help replace an old oil tank, even if it's located <b>under</u> the home.

Is something worng with this situation? Or am I just overly paranoid? {Please note that I'm not an electrician and am probably just paranoid on most accounts.}

Ian A.

Service size is something that often gets confused. I'd like to start with the basics here.

How much power is needed? There are two basic ways to answer this:
- You can do calculations, based upon appliances, square footage, etc; or,
- You cam measure the actual current used during peak times, and see how much is being used.

The size of the panel is largely irrelevant. Quite often, folks choose a "200 amp" panel because they want a lot of separate circuits; that doesn't always mean they'll actually use any more electricity.

Thanks Reno. Like I said, I'm not an electrician, but instead a drifter of these forums, as a 13 year old.

Ian A.

We get a similar situation over here, in which it's not at all unusual to see a newer 100A panel connected to an older 60A service.

Think also of a sub-panel for an outbuilding or an extension. You might need only two or three 15A general-purpose branch circuits there and decide that a 30A feeder is quite sufficient. That doesn't stop you installing a higher-rated panel.

They key point is that the panel rating is the maximum it can handle. It can be fed from a lower-rated supply quite safely, so long as the cable feeding it is large enough for the protective fuse or breaker at the source.