my church built a new maintenance building and want to put lights and a few plugs in it.
there is a 30 A 3r disco about 20 feet away from new building that was feeding a sprinler system since abandoned(to much $$ for green grass)anyway i am thinking about taking power from there and using the disco as a j box and run new wires to the maintenance building into a MLO panel backfed through a 30 A breaker w/lockdown device to feed said lights and receps of course i would drive ground rods and bond steel frame to ground bar (no water to building to bond) and float neutral my question is this does this seem like best way or should/could i change breaker at panel to a 20 A and come from load side of disco(abandoning sprinkler system) and feed building into a 2 pole switch and from there feed lights and receps eliminating all bonding requirements??? cheaper and more cost effective???

thoughts on best case scenerio would be appreciated.

h20

I can't see it from here so I need to know how much lightning does your area get? How close is the maintanance building from the church? Are flamabe liquid fueled machinery such as mowers and other lawn care equipment stored in the shed. Does the church have lightning protection?
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Tom Horne

i am in washington we almost never get lighting around here so lightning arressters are not required(not that ive ever heard but i am a transplant from minnesota). im sure we will put our mowers and store gas cans but not in high volumes. the church is probably 150 feet from new building so volt drop is not an issue.

thanks tom,

h20

The cheapest fix is probably to swap out the 30 with a 2 pole 20a breaker and feed the building with a single multiwire branch circuit.
You could probably replace the disconnect at the sprinkler location with a J box and reuse the disconnect at the building entrance.