I am pretty sure my answer to this is going to be yes we should. I guess one of my biggest concerns is why didn't my electrician recommend it. When our house burnt all of the electrical was redone in our home. The electrician knew at this time what all would being running off our 100 amp service, should he have advised us to upgrade to 200 amp service at the time? We have our house which is 1500 sq ft, all of our appliances, our hot water heater, and my husbands garage running off 100amp service. Now my husbands garage is a 26x32, heated garage with its own lighting and 220 volt air compressor. The garage was not here when we rebuilt the house but the electrician knew we were putting it up, so I would have thought if needed he would have said something. Now I am afraid our house is going to burn down again because of the service and am not sure what to do. Another question I have is instead of putting in 200 amp service would it be cheaper to put the garage on its own 100 amp pole? The electric company said it would cost $600 on their end to upgrade to 200 amp, but I haven't called an electrician. And I have not checked into putting a service pole on the garage. If anyone could help me figure out what to do or what may be cheaper I would greatly appreciate it.

Up grade without a doubt especially since the garage was built. If the garage had its own 100amp detected service off the power lines to a new pole then a meter base and that base could be considered commercial since it's a garage. Commercial electric is double res. So the "pole" off the power lines is expansive and I doubt they would allow that.

I don't know what heat you have there and is its electric baseboard which chews up a lot of room in a box, I would upgrade to at least a 200 Amp or even more if the garage in the future adds more outlets or a stick welder or more Get a different electrician to figure out the loads and any future loads that may be added in the garage. Welder etc If the house rewire was done and inspected properly I wouldn't be worried about another fire. If it wasn't inspected then I would worry a bit.

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I totally see what you mean and no my heat is propane, but we also have a corn stove. Is there any other service higher than 200 amp? I thought that was the highest service.

The commercial service on a residential garage must be a local thing. I have NEVER heard this before unless the area was zoned commercial and it was being USED for commercial purposes.
I would definitely check this out before taking it as fact.


Without a doubt I would upgrade. I am VERY surprised that your electrician did not suggest this as part of the re-wire. I bet the 100A is not real close to too small for your house. Include the garage and I'd guarantee it.

In a perfect world I'd upgrade to 200 in the house AND add a separate 200 for the garage.

At the very least, upgrade to 200 and run a 100A sub-feed to the garage.

What did the POCO say they will do for this $600?? POCO's don't typically charge anything if you upgrade the service, or even add a service.

The electric company said it would cost $600 to run the new 200 amp line from the transformer to our home and put in the new meter and box and from the meter on was our responsibility.

Service is a local thing. You might be able to get 400A service. There are some nice outdoor SE equipment that will split that into two 200 Amp disconnects/breakers.

Even three phase residential is available in very few areas.

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Originally Posted by raynarambo

The electric company said it would cost $600 to run the new 200 amp line from the transformer to our home and put in the new meter and box and from the meter on was our responsibility.

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I see. They are charging for a bit less than half the work involved in a service upgrade. I see where the $600 goes now.
Around here the power company rarely ever changes the drop and the electrician (homeowner $$) is responsible for everything from the taps on down.
It is also the customer's responsibility to run any underground on their property as well.

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Originally Posted by ;

I have NEVER heard this before unless the area was zoned commercial and it was being USED for commercial purposes.

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I have personally run into this with my property and PPL. I wanted to get rid of my telephone pole in my yard and below that I built a Very big garage and split there and pay for the extra drop. By code and zoning PPL would not let me set another meter because of PPL having the Same address for both meter reads on the land.

If it was building to apts added and new addresses then the billing department can recognize the change. That change in the billing can be recognized as a commercial billing which I guess there billing computer will not get screwed up because of a name etc commercial.
Plain and simple two Exact Address and two separate Res service meters no A B C apt etc. No go Had to go to house first another 150 more and split there and back the same 150 trench and then down over the hill to garage/barn. Now one even bothered to look over the hill ot was a dead no.

I am surprised hearing that from Pa.
There are more than a few "two meters on the same property in the same name" around here.

I know It cost a lot of money doing the extra 300 feet I wasn't happy and argued with PPL.
I partly know the locals PPl guys here I hoe out quite a few services in my time and here on My own property I get hammered. I check with the other electricians I dig for and they really couldn't recall a added meter with out another U.S. mailing address.
I'm still fighting The telephone company on telephone wire to get down the poles of the lane that PPL owns and yet the phone company says I own the poles. Not to mention the cable that was run through the other neighbors 50ft pine trees to my place and they took the trees down that come at right angel from road as oppsed to service. I have GREAT neighbors and that's not the problem here. My place is 5 aces so there's room.