100amp panel + solar

[TribalSeeds]

Eventually I plan to flip flower rooms, but no doubt that Ill need AC to do that during the summer.
I cant run 600W during the summer without AC during the day. Ill see if I can do 400W without a hood, but if not Ill just have to shut down during the summer days.
If we remove a few breakers Ill have enough room in the panel to run atleast one sub panel to the garage and then split that for the two rooms... I think

 

[rives]

LEDs. They can save you about 30% on the power and are a bit easier to deal with on the heat loading.

 

[TribalSeeds]

I have a T5 that works great during the winter but not when its hot out.
I checked into LED before but was thinking about them as flowering lights.
The price for a flowering light didnt seem reasonable. Atleast with my cash flow. Maybe a light just for veg wouldnt be so expensive. Definitely not in the budget for now. Im planning on making do with what I have for atleast another harvest.
Got a lot of dough into the pad already! Theres so much more to be done but Im dying to grow a plant!

 

[TribalSeeds]

This is the panel thats there now. I think we can keep the panel and just pop out some of the tabs on top if I need to add anymore breakers. Im not sure if theyre all in use, but I hope they are properly labeled. It looks like its set up to where the rooms have their own breakers. Some of the writing cant be read though.

 

[rives]

You can't really tell if the panel will accept more breakers without pulling the cover off. They seem to use a few covers over a wide variety of panels - sometimes the buss work doesn't extend to where the cover has tabs. Probably a good first step would be to pull the cover, see what you have, and start tripping circuits to verify the labeling.

 

[Z-ro]

If you really want, they can at least put a 125 on that line and you can run the full 100 amps with 25 to spare for safety. Might have to work around household usage but thats easy. If you upgrade you have to get a licensed electrician and he has to pull a permit with the city, then PGE and the city will come inspect it and you will be done. Probly take a week or two to make it all happen, only one day of actual work though. Kinda sketchy when you have all the workers and trucks out infront of your spot and all your neighbors wondering whats going on but it will be fine.

 

[rives]

If you really want, they can at least put a 125 on that line and you can run the full 100 amps with 25 to spare for safety. Might have to work around household usage but thats easy. If you upgrade you have to get a licensed electrician and he has to pull a permit with the city, then PGE and the city will come inspect it and you will be done. Probly take a week or two to make it all happen, only one day of actual work though. Kinda sketchy when you have all the workers and trucks out infront of your spot and all your neighbors wondering whats going on but it will be fine.

I'm curious how you determined that this would be an option - I haven't seen Tribal mention a wire size yet?

 

[Tela]

Pge wants 2.5 months to engineer my underground residential upgrade. He said it would be 5 grand to dig across the street to my tie in. Still worth it. I'll let you know how mine goes. Going to pull a harvest while I wait the 2.5 months

 

[TribalSeeds]

I'm curious how you determined that this would be an option - I haven't seen Tribal mention a wire size yet?

The electrician we had over said we might be able to pull 125/150 off of what we have installed. I think we just need to swap out a breaker at the panel.
We probably wont be doing anything with the wire, the meter or the panel. Atleast I hope we dont have to swap the meter.
I have less and less money to spend everyday!
Hopefully the power company calls us back to answer the damn questions the electrician has about the trench.
Im thinking Im going to just limit this to 4-5 600W lights for flower and a T5 or 2x400 W lights in veg, no AC, exhaust in each room and maybe 1 deheuy. I figure thats less than 30 amps total.
We have 2 TVs, a wash/dry and a frige. We never cook, but sometimes the microwave might be used. I dont think we will have a problem with 100amps if I dont add anymore lights to it.
As soon as I get in the house Ill be starting a small tent grow. Any day now!

 

[rives]

I can't really imagine why they would have oversized the feeders to the point that you could kick your breaker size up like that unless it was done with a bunch of parts that someone had laying around. A more likely explanation is that they were compensating for voltage drop.

Over a long run like you have, the resistance of the wire becomes a factor when supplying heavy loads. The wire size is increased in these cases to compensate for this effect, which is worse with aluminum than it is with copper because of the difference in their resistance. This resistance causes the voltage to drop at the point of usage, and this drop causes the amperage to go up on the devices that are being powered. This can shorten the life of the equipment and cause HID lamps to continually drop out and re-start. Voltage drop should be limited to 3% for motor loads and 5% for "typical" residential loads to keep from adversely affecting the connected gear.

Holler back if no one can run the calculations for you. We would need the overall length of the wire from the service panel to the point of connection, the size wire (printed on the insulation), and whether it is copper or aluminum.