Thoughts on mains panel location and interference

bluesfordan

bluesfordan

Member
When we get an electrician in here, I've been giving thoughts to trying to isolate the music room's electrical circuit from the rest of the house. We are going to have to essentially orphan and rewire the whole house anyway. However, the mains panel will be in the area of the music room. The line drop from the utility pole is on that corner of the house, so moving the panel is probably not an option. I can ask but I suspect it will be not recommended.

Is this likely to be a source of interference affecting my gear? I had thought about asking for a separate ground for the room, my thinking was that not being on the same circuits as all the motors of the HVAC, fridge, microwave, disposal, bathroom vent fans etc would make for cleaner AC. But if the location of the mains panel is problematic anyway, is there still any value to trying to isolate the music room's electrical circuit?

The other side of the cellar is closer to the end of the house where my brother works and sleeps and it has substantially less room. It is a last choice option and I'd really rather not go that route.

Has anybody had a basement studio/music room that had to share with the mains panel? Did it cause issues?
 
I was just informed that a licensed electrician would be not allowed to break out the music room's circuit on a separate ground. Code here in US says all grounds and neutrals must be common at the entrance point vis a vis the mains panel.
 
The same thing in general terms exists in the UK too - you can extend the equi-potential zone size, but two separate ones is full of problems. Remember, it's there to save your life by being the most direct path for return current in a fault condition. They can also cause all sorts of bizarre hum conditions when the ground of your equipment accidentally gets a ground from somewhere else. Really silly things - like you bring in a coax cable from your house TV antenna system, forgetting the distribution amplifier is grounded - the screen of that cable is at your house ground potential, but your music studio has a different ground - and current flows between them getting into your sound system through something as simple as an antenna cable.
 
You can have your mains anywhere, it just costs a bunch to put it somewhere else less convenient for the power company.. I have heard of studios that had sub panels just for the studio but they still come through the same main panel. It can make it more convenient to have the sub panel within easy distance of your studio if your main panel is some distance away.
 
mostly i was concerned about electrical interference from the mains panel if it was in close proximity to my music room, but it sounds like as long as everything is properly wired, it may not be an issue. I may have more of an issue with some high tension lines on the far side of the park behind and below my house. First I want to eliminate the house's contribution to the noise, as well as take care of potential safety issues. Not much I can do about those power lines. I may end up having to shield my guitar cavities, something I never had to deal with before.
 
You should not have any noise from the main panel nor the transmission lines across the park. The only time you would have such issues is when you have multiple grounds and they are connected through patch cables. But if everything goes back to the same ground bus in the main panel, you'll be okay. Having the panel in your studio would not be an issue except maybe it takes up space or doesn't match the studio's decor.

Having said that... I had a small interference hum when I would plug my keyboard into my interface and record it. This went on for years and drove me crazy. I always thought it was a grounding issue but couldn't isolate it.

I wired the studio myself and have a 20-amp breaker supplying the bulk of my equipment and it all goes through a UPS. But the keyboard is plugged into a different outlet on the other side of the room and that outlet gets its power from a different breaker. Same grounding bus though, so it shouldn't hum. I finally figured it out. The UPS puts out a different voltage than what goes into it. I measured the AC voltage between the UPS and the keyboard's outlet and it was about a 3v difference, hence the hum. So, now if I were to record my keyboard, I have to plug it into the UPS.
 
I have a receptacle tester and circuit breaker finder en route. Small step but first identify the issues, be prepared for the electrician.
 
There is nothing in the typical panel to cause interference - the meter, however, is a VERY different matter. I had my smart meter removed because it was incredibly annoying. Apart from music stuff, I have a number of radio bits of kit here - a UHF repeater and an SDR system. The meter kicked out all sorts of RF rubbish - just big swadges of noise at 68-75MHz, enough to make radio reception there impossible, and it had other noisy spurious outputs. Removal of the damn thing restored normal operation. It produced no issues in the studio, it should be said. Most panels (consumer units in the UK) just have switches and are totally passive devices. You can get cleverer circuit protection devices and timers and Alexa circuit breakers, which can be a way in for interference - but in the main - they just switch.
 
I don't know if this house has a smart meter. I remember the electric company making a big push to make them ubiquitous. I don't know if we have the option of deleting a smart meter. Now that I think about it, where I was sitting in the living room playing my guitars that day was on the other side of the wall where the electrical lines to the meter is on. I probably wasn't more than 3 meters (10 feet) from it.
 
Please don't think I'm suggesting that they're bad for studios. I got no issues to the studio from mine - just the interference that they seem to create from RF noise. I think this is not exactly a positive thing for meters to do, but it didn't cause my audio equipment any issues.
 
Having the new distribution panel installed in or near your studio space is a good thing. It means the wiring to your audio gear can be short, and the ground connections will have a short, direct path to the ground rod. That way, your gear has an easy path to drain away noise.

When the electrician gets to the rewiring job, make sure he puts the receptacles in the studio area on their own circuits. Don't daisy-chain the circuits from the panel to your outlets and then on to other parts of the house. It's okay to put multiple receptacles on a single circuit, but just keep those receptacles within the studio itself. The electrician will know how many receptacles are allowed on a (for example) 15-amp breaker. Put in plenty of receptacles and place them with an eye toward the space's intended use. If there are going to be guitar amps and such, make sure receptacles are conveniently located to allow plugging everything without extension cords or power strips. Even though the physical distance to the distribution panel and main ground connection may be short, extension cords length the electrical distance and make the overall connections less solid and more prone to noise.
 
Rich_S said:
Having the new distribution panel installed in or near your studio space is a good thing. It means the wiring to your audio gear can be short, and the ground connections will have a short, direct path to the ground rod. That way, your gear has an easy path to drain away noise.

When the electrician gets to the rewiring job, make sure he puts the receptacles in the studio area on their own circuits. Don't daisy-chain the circuits from the panel to your outlets and then on to other parts of the house. It's okay to put multiple receptacles on a single circuit, but just keep those receptacles within the studio itself. The electrician will know how many receptacles are allowed on a (for example) 15-amp breaker. Put in plenty of receptacles and place them with an eye toward the space's intended use. If there are going to be guitar amps and such, make sure receptacles are conveniently located to allow plugging everything without extension cords or power strips. Even though the physical distance to the distribution panel and main ground connection may be short, extension cords length the electrical distance and make the overall connections less solid and more prone to noise.
Click to expand...

thanks. I wanted to give every room in the house their own breaker anyway and you just made my point. As I've been tearing down the walls and ceilings and finding the, uh, unconventional way they tried to accomplish their means, the convinced I've become in just tearing everything out and starting over fresh. Never mind the mold, dirt, dust, rodent leavings, etc. Gawd, it's a freaking miracle this place hasn't burnt down before now. They put the romex wiring BEHIND the studs instead of drilling holes and threading them through. Between the stud and a concrete wall. When I took down the nasty insulation, that's what I found. Egads.
 
One of the benefits of what you are doing is to remove uncertainty. You will know that the installation to the studio is complete, safe and you’ll know how it’s been done for the future. I’m slightly worried that my studio installation here is non-compliant because it’s in an extension to my home, and the entire original house wiring was controlled and protected in exactly the wrong place. So an Industrial electrician installed a cabinet where the consumer unit was and extended every circuit to a better place in a new consumer unit. To the casual observer, it appears the house wiring is new and adheres to current regs, but I’ve discovered in the 17 years we’ve been here much of the house wiring is very old and bodged. If we move, which is on the cards, I’ll destroy the studio, but it will leave a very strange electrical system that will be flagged up on surveys!
 
I am about to rewire my studio as well. I have hired JH Brandt to design and consult my studio remodel. There is a ton of info on his site.

Don't forget to twist your Line/Neutral!!! Here are some informative links from JH Brandt's resource page. The bottom link shows the benefits of the wire twisting.

 
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