30k flip sealed room... Is this setup possible on 200amp pannel?

I'm in the planning stages of building out a new grow. I'm planning to run 2 sealed flower rooms and a veg room.

I've calculated the load and I'm at approx. 165 amps for the following:
30 Gavita pro's, only 15 on at a time
3 Gavita pro's, for veg on 18hr
2 quest 225's, only 1 on at a time
20 wall fan, all on 24/7
4 36k btu mini splits, only 2 on at a time
5 10" inline fans, only 2 on 24/7, rest is to purge the sealed rooms few times a day, mainly at lights off.
couple pumps on timers, only on for a few minutes, a few times a day for feedings.

I've crunch the numbers and I'm at an over estimate load of 165amps. When I say over estimate the items like the inline fans, pumps are calculated as on 24/7 and items like the a/c and dehumidifiers are calculated at drawing full power which we all know the amp drawn on these items fluctuate by how hard they are working.

Anyways, that 165amps do not include items like my fridge, oven, laundry etc. I also don't know if some of the bigger items like the a/c will have a surge in power when they initially start up. Also even though I'm running these rooms on a flip, when one room isn't using the A/C for example I'm sure its still drawing some power, even though its not running.

I've read some journals with similar setups, actually some with a few more lights, all running off 200amps with no issues. Am I really over estimating my figures here... should I be concerned running the above setup off a 200 amp panel or am I good to go? I'm about 2 months away from starting this project. I'm meeting with an electrician next month whom probably can answer these questions for me but wanted to get feedback from the forums... thank you!

I have a 150 amp main for my home, pulled 125 amp sub panel for the grow and I am running two rooms pulling about 10kW on a flip, 4 ton AC's flipped as well, veg room. My sub panel legs are both around 90 amps when the veg room is on and around 80 when it's off.

I put my range/oven, clothes dryer and hot water heater all on gas to get them off the electric.

I think if you can flip the AC units with your lights and move as many high power appliances to gas as possible you will be able to do it.

Remember when pulling power that you can't typically exceed 80% of a breakers rating continuously before it starts tripping. So my 125 amp sub panel for example, is able to pull 100 amps max.

I am pretty sure that most home switch panels, the largest breaker you will find is a 125 amp and you will need a heavy gauge piggy back lug for the neutral bus. Some older panels this may not be possible. Depending on the space in your panel, you may want to run the breakers for the AC's and dehu's up to the main panel and run the rest of the loads off a subpanel. Moving appliances like clothes dryer, range, hot water heater over to gas will also free up some spaces in the panel. Tandem/space saver breakers may also be used to consolidate some of the homes 120v circuits freeing up spaces in the panel. I don't know what brand of panel you have but some panels won't take the space saver/tandems.

Thank you for the reply. Everything in my place except for the stove/oven is on gas so that's a plus. I'm gonna be running gas lines to each room for co2 burners, plus one out back for the BBQ... probably run a line up behind the stove too just in case. I just bought that damn stove last year lol.

I got a license electrician coming in next month to review the plan and tell me whats possible. House is only 20 years old but only has 100 amps. Electric company is coming out to upgrade to 200amp service.

I own this place and its literally my dream setup. I plan to grow here for the rest of my life. I'm doing it right the first time, so if I have to update my main panel so be it. Thank again bud!

Why not just run a 5ton air handlers at this point for each room.

F80M4 said:

Why not just run a 5ton air handlers at this point for each room.

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Not enough cooling ability... I got a big dehumidifier, 10 fans and a 10 burner co2 generator in each room. I got a friend running 12 Gavitas with same "accessories" and his 5 ton barely can keep up. The (2) mini splits in each room have more btu's than a 5 ton and use similar power. I also like the fact that I can mount them on either side of the room and not have to deal with any duct work.

I got ~165A as well from my quick math. A 200A service can only run 160A safely but not all of your equipment should be running full bore constantly. Could be cutting it close when you factor in household equipment though.

If you run the Gavitas at 1055w instead of 1200w that brings you down ~15A.

Running the 5 10” inlines on 240v will bring you down ~8A.

Swapping the 3 Gavita Pro veg lights for 600w LED strips will drop another ~8A.

If you are upgrading why not pull a 400/320 continuous?

Renfro said:

If you are upgrading why not pull a 400/320 continuous?

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I asked... 200 amps max is what they can provide.

2klude said:

I asked... 200 amps max is what they can provide.

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Thats a bummer but you can work with it I believe. If you really wanna get into maximizing the space with side lighting then you will probably have to go with LED to cut some watts and heat. I am in the process of changing out some of my side lighting for LED, still have the DE's overhead. For me it's a balancing act on the power usage for sure but I get by. My poco wanted to get me a 400/320 but I didn't wanna pay for the upgrade at the time since they wanna charge me for the transformer. As it stands the transformer I am running on is definitely working hard lol.

If you put the AC units on a flip with a contactor then they can share the same breaker as only one would be going at once. Using one normally open and one normally closed double pole contactor with the proper amperage rating and a 120v coil that is triggered by the lighting timer. You would need to make sure the minisplits will auto restart after an outage for that to work properly. This is how I have my 4 ton minis setup, both on the same 40 amp breaker with contactors to flip them.

Led's definitely crossed my mind... they are in all our futures for sure. This spot has 10' ceilings and I love the idea of fixing DE lights to the ceiling and never having to move them again. High quality LED's where i'm at are also 4-5 times the cost of a Gavita 1k DE.

Definitely going to run this past my electrician. The guy has setup a few big grows and does real clean work, all to code. I'm following what your saying in theory but he's gonna be able to implement it. I can't see anything in the specs on the A/C that mentions an autostart fuction. It does have a built in timer that will allow me to time its on and off times.

I'm about 10 pages into your grow journal... great read so far... love the big trees.

2klude said:

Not enough cooling ability... I got a big dehumidifier, 10 fans and a 10 burner co2 generator in each room. I got a friend running 12 Gavitas with same "accessories" and his 5 ton barely can keep up. The (2) mini splits in each room have more btu's than a 5 ton and use similar power. I also like the fact that I can mount them on either side of the room and not have to deal with any duct work.

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Im running 12 gavitas with a 3 ton mini split. I have 5 fans, 1 scrubber, dehumidifier that I need to change out and run CO2. Cools just fine. Don't get me wrong the mini split runs more efficiently but a buddy of mine runs air handlers shit takes out heat way better.

Nice thing about most mini splits is they will work when it's cold outside. Most normal split units are only able to run down to the 50's before the evap coil freezes up. Of course you could go with a freeze kit and get a few more degrees but it's not energy efficient like the mini.