Recently I purchased a shop that was next door to my property.  The shop is about 25 years old, but in good condition.  I took everything out of it, and cleaned it out with a blower and pressure washer, running out wasps, rats, mice, and spiders in the process.  Now that it is clean I am beginning to move in it.  I am planning to make a nice shop in which I can do some good woodworking projects.  I plan to install the Logosol PH260 moulder and also have a sawmill sight next door, just outside the shop.  It should be a nice place for people interested in the Logosol Planer to come for demos and also for sawmill demos.

The first order of business is to completely rewire the shop to have my own electrical power installed.  Since this is a major consideration for many people considering their shop for our planers and sawmills, I thought I would show the process of wiring this shop.  You can follow along with the procedure and maybe learn something that will be of help if you are working on your own home or business shop.  

The first step is to contact the local power company.  And, before I contacted the electric power company, I had to decide the type of power and how much power I would need for my shop.  Since I could look at the electric lines on the poles and see there were only two wires, I could see that 3 phase was not available from the electric company for this location - at least not without a lot of extra costs involved.  

The shop was located next to a residence, so the power pole with a transformer was close to the shop - within 100 feet.  I decided that I wanted a 200 amp service.  This is based on the requirements for the PH260 with a phase converter.  The phase converter that I have available is a 30 HP phase converter.  Based on a chart on GWM's website for their phase converters, I could see that I would need  150 amp service to support this size phase converter(200 amp is better – this is the minimum. )  I normally recommend a 200 amp service panel and a 100 amp breaker in that panel for a phase converter setup for Logosol planer/moulders.  You can see that chart here:http://www.gwm4-3phase.com/rotary.html 

I visited Alabama Power and after some discussions they recommended an engineer visit my site.  We arranged a time and I met him at the shop.  I had originally asked about underground service, just so the power lines would be out of sight, but, after cost discussions, I decided to see if I could use an overhead installation.  Underground service requires 80psi rated conduit to be laid at least 3 feet deep and the ballpark figure for getting that laid and the power run is $1000.  Overhead was no charge since we were within 100 ft. of the pole with a transformer.  There is a large oak tree next to the shop and I did not want the power company to have to prune that tree, so I found an entry spot at the other end of the building that would allow a straight drop to the building without having to prune the oak.

The engineer agreed that this was a good location and brought me the meter base and told me that they could pull from the top of the weatherhead(a ten foot metal pipe with a hood on it for weathertight wire entry).  They could also pull from an eyebolt anchored in the side of the building.  Since I wanted it away from the oak tree limbs as much as possible, I am opting for anchoring the wire to the weatherhead.  This means I have got to really attach that pipe to the building.  He also told me the point of attachment needed to be at least 12 feet in the air from the ground.

While the engineer was there I asked him the size of the transformer on the pole.  Though it was an older transformer, it was rather big, but he also could make out a 2 up on the side of the transformer which was part of the number 25, which meant that the transformer was a 25 KVA transformer.  This was a good thing, as many house installations have only a 15 KVA transformer, which would mean less power available.  When he saw that, he indicated that I would have plenty of power available for whatever I wanted to do in that shop.  

Now, that the planning was done, it was time to get to work finding and purchasing the electrical parts and get it installed so the power company could install the actual power.