I'm starting to plan out a new service for my house.

My current setup is a 100A service that comes into the house via service mast into a combination panel in the basement. This panel feeds a 60A sub-panel for my basement suite, and a 40A sub-panel in the attached garage. My back carport will be turning into a shop (no power yet).

I want to build the new service entrance in my attached garage (it has a common roof, but no shared walls). I want to feed my "upstairs", basement-suite, and detached shop each as a sub-panel off the main service.

What's a good way to accomplish this? I've considered a few possibilities...

1) A master combination panel with three large-ish breakers (40-100A) one for each sub-panel. Probably also feed attached-garage loads from this too.

2) A main disconnect switch, running into a splitter. I suppose only the panel in the detached garage will need a disconnect near the splitter. The rest can just be combination panels.

3) A main disconnect switch... and pickup a used meter stack [Linked Image] Has bonus appeal of monitoring my tenant's power use, and accomplishes multiple disconnects in a single enclosure.

My spare parts bin consists of a couple of two 60A fused disconnects, a 100A fused disconnect, a 60A combination panel, and two lengths of #2 ACWU that would make great panel feeders.

I can't say I run into this kind of design-work on the job... I'm a 2nd year apprentice and have mostly residential high-rise, and institutional experience. I already have some suggestions from the guys at work, but more peoples opinions would be helpful [Linked Image]

[This message has been edited by u2slow (edited 09-26-2003).]