Split a 200A service?

Hey guys, I've worked on electrical equipment both AC/DC a long time. Though I'm generally in the repair business from the Outlet side I do have experience running cable from the mains to whatever it may be. I'm not much familiar with code and what's out there though.

My idea may be totally unfeasible, impossible, or just plain cheaper to put in a 200A box and make a run to the sub panel. I have a 100A main in my house. I also have a 100 sub panel in my garage with a 100A service(I'm making an assumption on that one.. have not verified the guage of the wires).

Here's the thing.. I probably should have a 200A service line.. however 100A is really all I need in the house and the garage. Is there such a thing where I can run the 200A line and and have a preferably a fused disconnect outside at the meter.. with 2 100A connections coming out of it.. that meets code in VA?

I inherited this as it is so don't look at me, two.. it's been mainly me for the most part so I probably never used 50A combined the whole time I lived there. However, My sister wants to reside at my house with her Camper(she has to be in VA for at least 8 weeks a year.. her job keeps her moving) and my mom is moving in with me as well... she's a electrical hog.. so I fear between her camper drawing 50A's with the AC's running, and my mom I'm gonna be pushing the 100A mains a bit hard. I'd like to put my sister on the garage sub panel which already has a 60A line she could plug into. Of course this is if I could split the 200A service to two 100A box's.. I figure it'll be cheaper.. and even if the box is a bit on the high side it would simplify the electrical work to offset the cost.

Ideas?

 

You could put in a 200 ampere meter socket and then a 200 ampere main circuit breaker panel with two 100 ampere CBs to feed each 100 ampere panel. Doing so would require the separation of neutral and equipment grounding conductors in the house panel as it would then become a sub-panel. Hopefully the garage panel already has a four-wire feeder.

Wait a minute! I just re-read this:
What do you mean you haven't verified the gauge of the wires. Is this wired in parallel to the service wires from the meter to the main CB in the house panel? Or is it fed from a 2 pole CB in the house panel? The former is wrong.

Some pictures may help.

 

There would be some Ts to cross and Is to dot to do it correctly, but yes that is something you could do with your service. You wouldn't necessarily need to even do 200A -- 100A or 150A might be plenty for the service once you do the calculation.

Check on the items Furd listed, and some pictures of the panels would help too, then we can start to look at the details.

 

The one going to the garage is a sub panel. The service runs through the attic, down the outside wall, into the meter, through the wall into the top of the main box. It is a fuse box and has two main rails with connections at the top and bottom. You flip the heavy fuse cartridges to put them in the off position. The main service comes in the top of the box. At the bottom of the buss there are two heavy guage wires coming off going to a 12 fuse block that houses all the fuses for the lights and recepticals. It is in those two wires there is a tap which runs to the sub panel(not fused on the main box end) running to the breaker box in the garage.

There will be an electrician doing this but I'm just researching my options at this point so I can decide how I want to go about doing all this.

 

How many individual wires total are running from the garage to the fuse panel? There should be four although I suspect there are only three.