Electrical for workshop from 200a Main Service Panel

[Rick Christopherson]

When I built my shop 17 years ago, I ran three direct burial #2 copper wires from my 150 amp main panel in the house to a 100 amp subpanel in my 1200 SF detached shop. I drove two ground rods for the shop and isolated the neutral and ground (not bonded). I pulled my own permit and did all the wiring.

If you wired this as described, without running a ground from the main, then you need to get that panel bonded right away. A short to chassis in your shop will not trip the over current device without the bonding screw.

[Jeff Erbele]

100 amps may be overkill if it's a one man shop. Mine is only 40 amps and I've never had any challenges.

I'm with Jim Neeley. When it comes to electrical capacity and room for expansion I believe there is not such thing as overkill.
I ordered a 200 amp sub panel for my 1,000 sq ft garage in our new house under construction.

I spent a lot of money on electrical upgrades in the past three, modern houses. The earlier two each had garage sub-panel upgrades and present one should if we had not decided to build. Our present house with a 20 x 20 garage has one GFCI outlet and one light bulb socket in the garage plus an outlet on the ceiling for overhead door opener.

When one compares the cost of installing electrical capacity at time of construction to upgrading it later, the former is very inexpensive and a whole lot easier. I would rather have vacant breaker slots available any day, even if NEVER used, than finding I am one or more short.

In the workshop forum, one theme steady and certain is solving electrical capacity upgrades. I have yet to see a single post where anyone posted concerned with an unused outlet, a light they rarely turn on, or regret paying for a panel and are not using all of the breaker slots.

What am I going to do with 200 amps? I'm not exactly sure about the second half or the last few, but I'll blow thru the first 100 amps real quick once I start outfitting it for a shop. I have a welder, will have a vertical air compressor and plan on DC and a mini-split heat pump.