Commercial meter at residence on PG&E.

[HillMizer]

Hey everyone. I'm looking for advise and sharing my experience as I add a second meter to my home.

I needed a service upgrade for my home so I came up with the idea to add a separate meter and panel for the grow and maybe the hot tub (definite business expense)

I'm on 2 parcels adding up to about 5 acres. It's zoned Rural. I put an application in with PG&E today so we'll see if they approve it.

I'm trying to get the equipment installed by my electrician and run it on the original meter until the outdoor garden is taken down and trimmed. At that time I can have pg&e install the meter and if they need a permit I can pull a homeowner permit and get it inspected.

I plan on running two 8kw shipping containers, a veg room/ production clone room and supplemental light for my greenhouse. I'll be starting a thread on building my grow/dry/trim barn with shipping containers as a base. I'm using one now.

Thanks I hope this is useful.

 

[queequeg152]

people do it all the time for home buisnesses.

u have a guy running a small welding operation in his detached garage... he needs the seperate meter to properly expense the cost of electricity.

the other big one is renting out your guest house to another tenent.

i dont see why this would be a problem at all. keep in mind you will be paying fees and taxes on two service connections though... in my area this is like 14 bucks a month alone.

 

[HillMizer]

PG&E got right back to me.

They approved the additional meter, but require an additional drop (line) from the pole. They are asking for $1500 engineering deposit to evaluate the costs to provide service and then there will be additional fees on top of that.

The existing drop from the pole will support 400a no problem.

I can see why folks use their home panels. I'll be saving a lot of money on equipment by not adding the other service. New square D disconnects, meter boxes and main breakers that the supply house quoted was $1100. That's not even load centers. For some reason we couldn't just used two 200amp metered mains.

 

[miltiano32]

I'll be starting a thread on building my grow/dry/trim barn with shipping containers as a base. I'm using one now.

Which part of the forum will you post the build with the shipping containers? Very interested in seeing this as i had a same plan for the future.

 

[HillMizer]

Which part of the forum will you post the build with the shipping containers? Very interested in seeing this as i had a same plan for the future.

Here, I'll start it now.