Well, I hope no one minds the occasional homeowner question. For what it's worth, I think I know the basics of residential and I have local help, but I wouldn't mind a few extra opinions on these questions.

I'm adding a detached garage/shop to our house and upgrading the service to 200A. The garage gets a 125A subpanel. I could fit the garage breaker in the panel for the house (the panel is outside and convenient), but the discussion of Welder Woes has made me nervous that this setup might load down or spike the house circuits when I'm welding and the air compressor cycles on. Would separating the house and shop at a main disconnect help anything? The contacts between breakers and a panel bus have always looked small to me, like they might limit current during a high load. If they are, then separating the shop before the house panel might be a way to avoid this problem. Of course, I may be trying too hard to second guess the engineers who designed the panels. [Linked Image]

Also, I plan to use GE panels, mainly because GE costs less and you can get parts anywhere on a Sunday. Before I buy though, is there anything to be gained by paying more for Square-D (or Cutler-Hammer or Siemens)? Just looking at them (bus size, breaker to bus connections, etc.), it doesn't look like Sq-D is worth the 50% more that their stuff costs, but a lot of people use it. Does it last that much longer?