Hi everyone, this is my first post.

I have a 60 x 100 ft shop that has a 200 amp service fed in from the pole. Well I added a living space in the shop, which is about 720 sq ft. I plan on doing all the wiring myself and need a little advice on what kind of panel I should use? The living quarters will have baseboard heat, oven, dryer, entertainment center, water heater, etc. The panel will be about 30' away from the main lug panel. Could I just tap right into the main coming in from the pole and run it to another 200 amp box for my living quarters? Thanks a lot for all your help.

If you are talking about tapping off the input side of the existing 200 amp service, you would need to check to see what size load the cable from the meter could handle. I have never heard of anyone trying this and you may want to check with your local code office to see if there would be an issue. What you do after the meter yourself would be you taking on liability if there was an overload so do some local homework to see if code can allow this. I would not suggest tapping off the bus on the output of the 200 amp main (installing a 200 amp breaker in the 200 amp service connection with all your other breakers) as this would be more than the design of a 200 amp service could take.

Thanks for the reply. I just figured the lines coming off the pole could handle a couple 200 amp panels. The original panel is quite far from the apt that I built and instead of running wires so far, why not just tap in to the main line and install another panel. I would like to do a sub panel to be more by code, but I don't think that would be enough for all the electrical appliances.

I would say just do a sub panel, unless in your shop you have a lot of applicances, machines, equipment etc.. That you are loading off the main 200 Amp service but it should be fine to run a sub panel that could handle what you will be loading in your apt.