# How to plan for Pad Mounted Transformers



## boot (Mar 1, 2013)

Please excuse the inevitable ignorance I will be displaying in this thread. I am currently a Journeyman electrician, planning to sit for the Master exam next year.

My father owns a large tract of land, 100+ acres. For awhile he's been asking me to help him set up electrical service on the land. I told him I can't help him until I have my master license, but with that around the corner he's become more insistent!

He has about 2 miles worth of road going through the property, and in his dream scenario there is a high voltage line run along the length of the road, with periodically located pad mounted transformers for tapping line voltage.

In my day to day work, mostly residential, I never need to think about these things. When I go into a neighborhood and start wiring homes, somebody has already mounted the transformers, all we do is run conduit between the house and the transformer, and the utility hooks us up. Ive never known who put the transformers there, and what went into deciding where they were placed. I am kind of curious what sort of planning had to occur for those neighborhoods to get set up that way.

I told my dad that I suspected a site plan was submitted to the municipality, with proposed lot divisions- and from there the transformer locations were selected and placed.

My dad doesn't know what he wants to do with the property- he may subdivide or he me leave it as one piece, say to be a campground someday. His hope is that he can have the lines put in without any of these plans being materialized.

He said at a bare minimum, for starters he wants at least one transformer somewhere near the middle of the property- where there would be a service mounted on a pedestal. Are you allowed to do this? Or does a service need to have a physical home associated with it?

I just have no idea how to coordinate this, but I'd like to help him somehow once I am appropriately licensed. Is anybody willing to share with me, the process involved in getting an idea like this rolling?

Obviously, there is some major coordination to be had with the local utility, because I'll never be allowed to run primary lines- I know that. But, he wants to know if he's allowed to dig the trenches himself, and if we're allowed to run the conduits and mount the bases of the pads, either concrete or fiberglass. When you're blending the work of the utility with the landowner, what sort of involvement would the town want to have? What kind of permit would need to be pulled for such an operation?

This is where more of my ignorance comes into play, I've never pulled a permit, so I am very unfamiliar with the process. My boss pulls the permits, I am just there for the inspections. I'd ask my boss these questions, but my dad is pretty budget oriented on this matter- and my boss wouldn't really be inclined to answer my questions if he couldn't get his fingers in the pie. Realistically, I'd be helping my dad at near to no cost to him besides materials.


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## trentonmakes (Mar 21, 2017)

Shot in the dark here....
Im sure others more knowledgeable will be along shortly...

Trench to nearest pole, to center of lot, pour concrete pad and build a board to mount a meter and panel.
Then you got power and can tap off panel as needed.











Just did something similair for parking lot lights in a field.

He can pull permits as land/home owner and you can do all work(to code), up to utility pole. POCo will make cannection at pole and set meter


Texting and Driving


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## telsa (May 22, 2015)

This stuff is usually kicked up to EEs.

BTW, you REALLY can run your own primary circuit raceways -- to the Poco's specs.

The key thing is that you CAN'T build to 'fuzzy.'

That's your real problem.

Your fella actually has no idea of what the ultimate scheme must be.

That's a show stopper -- for EVERYONE.

Power demand drives the ENTIRE design.

Secondarily, the local authorities usually decide whether you can even stay overhead.

In my berg... even the MV Poco conductors have to run underground. ( 12kV to 35kV )

If the load is great enough, you'll be required to plant reactive capacitance, too.

I build such stuff -- I don't design it.

I'm not about to jump into the role of being an EE at this time.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

telsa said:


> The key thing is that you CAN'T build to 'fuzzy.'


That's a good way to wind up building it TWICE.


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## flyboy (Jun 13, 2011)

My advice would be to first get a copy of the utilities engineering book and read the section(s) that apply to you. Also, make a few phone calls to the utility and get some of your questions answered. 

You never know, your utility may permit you to do the inground primary. I know where I am there's a utility that gives you a choice, however, they are so expensive, most contractors do it themselves. Excavation and all. The utility provided the primary cable. At a cost of course. 

If that is the case with your utility, they will have the specs on how to do it. Ask for them. 

If one of my guys ask me about this I would not only help him sort out all the logistics, but I'd let him use his truck and tools to do the job. I'd probably allow him to use our company account for materials and have him pay me back.

...but thats just me.


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## flyboy (Jun 13, 2011)

telsa said:


> This stuff is usually kicked up to EEs.
> 
> BTW, you REALLY can run your own primary circuit raceways -- to the Poco's specs.
> 
> ...


Yeah, but he's from Maine, not the communist state of California. :whistling2:


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## Bird dog (Oct 27, 2015)

Telsa and others are right. You can't build to fuzzy. FWIW my advice would be for his father to find two or three highly knowledgeable real estate agents to tell him what the highest and best use for the property is. His father doesn't need to start a business that doesn't work when he should be retiring.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

Here, our POCO, FPL, will only set a transformer on an easement, you have to give them an easement on your property. Here it's as easy as recording it with the county.
Once they have an easement, they will set a pad.


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Land planning architect's. No other way. Sorry Dad......................


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Do you have any younger brothers who can be steered into design school?
Your father has shown to be patient so far, whats another 4-7 years of schooling. and wait time..............


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

Done a few, here it usually involves me and the land owner marking up a site plan, walking it with a POCO designer then having a land surveyor do a survey and lay out the easements then easement documents are done up. Then we get to work.

I do this stuff for customers that are land developers so they already have a master plan in the works.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

macmikeman said:


> Land planning architect's. No other way.


I'd say you really want to look at roads and drainage along with utilities when you know what you're going to do.


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## boot (Mar 1, 2013)

Thank you guys for all your rapid and informative responses. 

I'm still looking them over, I'd like to respond to your individual comments, a lot to take in!


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

I was just involved with building a 1200 amp underground service with padmount transformer. It wasn't that difficult. The poco has a very detailed spec and as long as you follow the spec and have the right manpower and materials, you're good to go. The poco here requires us to pull secondaries and provide empty conduit for the primaries.


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## 3DDesign (Oct 25, 2014)

In our area, for a single property, the PoCo would supply and install the transformer, however there would have to be some type of home or structure there to feed. The first 1,000 ft of overhead is usually free. You would pay the difference in the cost of underground. 

If the property is developed with roads and proper local & state approvals, the PoCo would install all of it free. The developer supplies and installs the conduit to the PoCo specs and design. the Power company does the rest.


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

3DDesign said:


> In our area, for a single property, the PoCo would supply and install the transformer, however there would have to be some type of home or structure there to feed. The first 1,000 ft of overhead is usually free. You would pay the difference in the cost of underground.



What a difference the poco makes. In the case of the 1200 amp service I mentioned above, the property owner had to pay National Grid $18,000 to have the 3-phase extended a few hundred feet down the street, as well as set the pole on the property for the underground primaries which go all of 20 feet to the pad mount.


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## dronai (Apr 11, 2011)

Jlarson said:


> Done a few, here it usually involves me and the land owner marking up a site plan, walking it with a POCO designer then having a land surveyor do a survey and lay out the easements then easement documents are done up. Then we get to work.
> 
> I do this stuff for customers that are land developers so they already have a master plan in the works.



This ^


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)




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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

Call the utility supplying power before you ever put pencil to paper.


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## boot (Mar 1, 2013)

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I despise trying to write responses on my cellphone, so I put it off until I have some time to sit at my desktop.

I admit, my dad likes his fuzzy plans- and eventually he will be forced to choose something less fuzzy, but this is routine. For the person who joked about me having younger brothers, yes I do- 3 of them! I don't think I'll be inspiring any of them to become engineers though ! 

As far as my boss, he's a really nice guy- but he does like to get paid for his help, so I can't blame him.

Based on your responses, it sounds like the most efficient approach would be to call up the POCO and do a site walk with them and my dad. We can talk power demands and general plans.

Of course in my dream scenario, my dad digs a 2' deep trench with his excavator right now, all down the length of the road from the street to the center of the lot, swept up into a concrete pad. Let'a say we find out the largest conduit for any wire that we could need is 4". So, we throw in some sand, couple thousand feet of 4" conduit, bury it. In 8 months we call up the POCO, tell them where the conduit is, and that we want wire pulled through it and a transformer hooked up on the end. Later, nearby- we build this...




trentonmakes said:


> Shot in the dark here....
> Im sure others more knowledgeable will be along shortly...


Let's dissect my dream scenario and ferret out the ignorance. 

- Do I need a permit to drop that conduit in the ground before I call the POCO, or can someone give it a thumbs up retroactively? Does someone need to inspect conduit for primaries? Like I said, in my job, the boss is pulling a permit for conduit from the pad to the house, someone mysterious already ran the primaries for the transformer pads- did they have a separate permit?
- Sounds like this conduit would require an easement (that's fine), if so, could my dad apply for the easement after we run the conduit?
- Can we just wait to pull a permit for when I want to do the backer board with line voltage service?
- There's a shallow stream along the path, can conduit be buried under it?
- Is there a limit to how long an uninterrupted conduit run can be?
- Can someone tell me more about the application of reactive capacitance?

^^^ There's probably more questions I should be asking too ^^^


With this scenario all laid out of course, there is the alternative of doing this all overhead instead. Would that make any of this easier? What kind of spacing do poles need? In fact, my dad may end up preferring that route since it would permit easy installation of pole mounted lighting. Personally, I hate how vulnerable poles are to tree fall. The road isn't very wide right now, but maybe he could widen it.


Thanks again for all your responses and wading through the fuzzy with me. I'm hopeful by next year it won't be so fuzzy.


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## trentonmakes (Mar 21, 2017)

As said yalk with POCO 1st

Trench needs to be inspected before its backfilled, you can pull wires after laying pipe.

Not sure you can go under stream??? If depth is correct for what your doing, maybe

Theres no limit on how long, but you will need to be aware of voltage drop.

You can pull permits for trench and backer board seperately, but ideally its likely better to do it together.





ANSWERE THE QUESTION STEVIE!


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## Going_Commando (Oct 1, 2011)

You know, just because you are running primary and doing padmounts doesnt mean it has to be owned by the utility. You could always primary meter and have a meter and air disconnect at the street and buy your own mv cable and transformers. Depending on the voltage atthe street the mv cable isnt horrible price wise. He needs to figure out what he wants to do though, because there is no sense building out transformer pads and running primary if he isnt going to have load at those points.


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