# Fee for replacing this Electrical Panel & Service



## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

I'm closing on a new place on the 12th. One thing the home inspector came up with is the following.. I thought I'd ask some opinions on what work I should have done, and what the costs might be. Here from the inspection report:


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## nosqrls (Jun 9, 2012)

The drop between meter and main panel made need upgrade also. If doing it might as well do a 200 amp main panel for future upgrades.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

35 amp fuses and a 70 amp entrance is not just undersized, but grossly undersized. I would have put any upgrade costs on the seller. You don't have enough overhead for anything much more than lighting. No electric stovetop or oven, no electric hot water, no safe operation of a space heater, no pumps of any size.

There is no way that any competent estimate of costs can be made without an on-site inspection by an electrician. In addition, if you call the power company to upgrade the pig and entrance, they will undoubtedly see what you have and refuse until a properly sized main panel is installed. Upgrading from the power company may cost you a fee as well - and they may have minimum requirements beyond the 100 amp panel you might be able to cheap out on.

I would CONSERVATIVELY estimate a proper upgrade to a 200amp entrance by an electrician at $1,500 - $2,000. You'll need
Pig (transformer supplied by power company) ($$$?)
entrance cable ($$$?)
weatherhead
conduit
meter box
ground rod + lead
conduit
main panel
mains breakers
circuit breakers
labor - 6hrs - 8hrs

That just gets you from the power line past the mains panel. If the sub-panel can be eliminated and combined with the main panel, it should be done at the time.

The entrance is the key to the entire electrical system within the house. Once it is in place, other issues can be addressed on a more leisurely as needed basis. With wiring that old, there will be some cable replacement, and probably every socket and switch should be examined and 90% of them replaced.


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

Thanks Harry Chickpea. 

I have no problem installing switches, outlets, wiring at least.

The house is all gas water heater, dryer, etc.


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

I'm just one person and honestly shouldn't use much electricity, so the 100amp panel may be the route I go. 

I have however no clue just how much that translates to. I think in watts, this appliance uses this many watts, etc. What exactly do 70, 100, etc. translate to that way?


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

If the house is all gas appliance and you have no need or desire to change that AND you won't ever want central AC AND the power company will go along, a 100 amp entrance might be enough and be cheaper. Since a lot of the cost of such things is in the labor, it is often wiser to overbuild. I have a capability of three 200 amp entrances.

Ignoring something called power factor, the conversions on power measurements are simple.

Watts = voltage times amps. Think of voltage as the pressure of water in a hosepipe, and amps as the amount of water that can flow through the hosepipe.

Voltage is commonly 120 volts.
So... if you have a 1200 watt heater, 1200 watts divided by 120 volts means that it uses 10 amps. A 120 watt lamp would draw 1 amp.

Power is priced by the kilowatt hour (KWH) A single KWH is the power used to fuel a 1,000 watt heater for one hour. - or - 10 100 watt lights for one hour, and so on.

Appliances commonly show peak operating watts used. Lets go back to that 1200 watt space heater. When it is on, it'll use 10 amps. But since it will cycle on and off based on the thermostat setting, using it for an hour might only use half of a kilowatt hour.

Wiring has to be correctly sized for the planned appliance as well. The heater could work on a 15 amp circuit, but two of them would blow the fuse or trip a 15 amp breaker. One reason for that is that the cable to the socket is not large enough diameter to hold all those amps. It'll work a little while, but the internal resistance of the wire will cause it to heat up and cause a fire or destroy a connection.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Prices are going to be all over the place. but $1000 is about what it would cost around here to put in a modern panel, re-run some wires and bring in a new 100amp service.


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

$1000-$1500 is much better than $2000-$2500 if that's possible. 

Here's the rest of the report on the electrical:


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

Harry Chickpea said:


> If the house is all gas appliance and you have no need or desire to change that AND you won't ever want central AC AND the power company will go along, a 100 amp entrance might be enough and be cheaper. Since a lot of the cost of such things is in the labor, it is often wiser to overbuild. I have a capability of three 200 amp entrances.
> 
> Ignoring something called power factor, the conversions on power measurements are simple.
> 
> ...


Thanks Harry Chickpea, this is all quite helpful.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I agree with Harry in replacing the panel with a 200 amp panel instead of the 100 amp. You'll only have to pay the installation fee once (better if you can get the sellers to pay for the upgrade). When we did ours the disconnect/reconnect fee from the electric company was around $150 and they don't provide the service on weekends. If you go with the 200 amp, get the box that has more breakers. It will be a good investment if you ever need to switch to electric appliances or you want to set up any kind of workshop using electric power. 

Your lender might pull out of the deal after reading the home inspection report. 

All we did was change the breaker box to one that had more circuits. Dh did it himself so it cost us less than $500. We would have had to have a new incoming line, weather head, and meter if we had upgraded.


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

Looks like my best course is to try to get several quotes from electricians to see what price options I can get.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Find where the local electric supply wholesaler is, walk in and ask at the counter for the names of a few electricians that do that type of work. The reason for this is that there are some who only specialize in big jobs and commercial work, some who like high-end work, and so on. The other source of names would be the local county or municipal electric inspector.

You can also price out the equipment if you are in the mood, but expect to pay a bit more than those prices when having the work done. Don't be tempted to go by internet prices and get stuff shipped in. To be credible and have someone willing to work, you have to play by the rules.


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## beenaround (Mar 2, 2015)

a good rule to go by is a house rarely uses more than 60 amps at any given time. I use 200amp/40 breaker service mostly to get the breakers need for all the individual circuits required today.

If electric heat is used the rule is no good, needs much more.

You definitely could use an upgrade but I've seen worse. Somebody is going to get shocked. You may not understand this and most newer homes don't use it any more due to plastic plumbing, but the metal water lines are the ground in your house and it's easy to touch both without understanding what's going to happen. I'd bet you have an outside spigot near that falling apart service line.

The thing that stinks about an upgrade is there's nothing different about the power before and after. You don't gain anything when you go to use it. Everything runs just the same.


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

What in the world do you guys run that need 200 amp panels?

for many years this farm only had a 70 amp breaker at the pole and we never tripped the breaker, 

now it has a 100 amp, we have walk in coolers and freezers, 2 refrigerators 4 chest freezer, AC, one electric hot water heater, pump water (300 feet), have a large electric welder, (60 amp breaker), 5 HP air compressor, (true 5 HP not a junk one that says 5 HP), 
two shops one wood working and one metal shop, 

fans on the grain bin, and motors on the grain augers

I have 5 (6 if you count the metal grain bin with the three fans on it and the augers) two shops, a well house/generator shed, house, wood granary, and the steel bin, 

and have yet to come close to tripping the breaker, (the demand meter says the most I have ever used is about 60 amps), and I know by my bill there are months I use a lot of electricity,


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Heat, stove, dryer, well pump, sump pump, water heater. And sometimes we run more than 2 major appliances at the same time.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

"What in the world do you guys run that need 200 amp panels?"

4 ton heat pump with commensurate electric heat strips. (They rarely come on for long because of the way we use it, but they are a defrosting requirement.) Dryer, oven, water pump, electric hot water, dishwasher, etc.

What you are not understanding are the safety and expansion factors. Our house in Florida had a 100 amp entrance. Useage was a 3 ton heat pump with NO heat strips, irrigation pump, pool pump (no heater), electric stove, hot water, dryer. One day I was out back by the pool and smelled burning insulation. I walked over to the meter box and the conduit coming from it to the main panel was too hot to even hold my hand near, let alone touch.

I shut off everything and called out our company electrician. He had to break the seal and work "hot" to find and fix the problem. What had happened was that over time the excess draw on the leads had heated the connections to the point of corrosion. Once a connection is corroded, the resistance is higher and it acts like a space heater, and with repeated use and increasing corrosion the effect can snowball.

Because of the way the cables from the meter box to the main breaker were laid, I was about three hours from a direct short if the insulation had failed. There would have been NO way to power it off, since it was before the main breaker and there was a distinct possibility that it would have burned down the house.

A larger entrance provides a much larger connection surface, and the effect of any resistance heating is dissipated.

A corollary is that water piping is typically rated at 300 PSI even though average water pressure rarely goes higher than 70 PSI. That higher rating insures reliability and safety even under unusual conditions.

Can you get away with a 100 amp entrance? Sure, people have done so for years, and they have also had substandard wiring and (mostly) come away without incident. For me, the risk/reward ratio of having a properly sized entrance is a no-brainer, since I don't rely on a company for home insurance.


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## beenaround (Mar 2, 2015)

Harry Chickpea said:


> "What in the world do you guys run that need 200 amp panels?"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


your incoming was probably undersized and "breaking the seal" is done to pull the meter which kills the power from there to the house. 

Corrosion is a problem since we now use aluminum service lines (only allowed from the meter base to the main, never in the house for circuits anymore). The bare aluminum (striped) must be coated with a purpose grease to seal it before connected to the steel lug ( a very corrosive environment all by itself). Inspectors round here make a point of looking for that grease. Florida was known for crappy work, a hurricane changed that I hear. 

You were near the pool... you were near a source that causes corrosion. A larger anything would just allow the service more time before the same thing happened if all was the same.

It's the world we live in. Way to be heads up. Getting hit with lightening can cause the same break down. All it takes is a lose/loosened connection.

They allowed aluminum back in the 60's 70's for circuits, houses burned.


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## nosqrls (Jun 9, 2012)

Here you don't need a licensed electrician but it has to be left open for the inspector. and be prepared to answer ?'s. run length's sizes of wire. here connection between meter and main and weather head has to be encased in sch 40 pipe. You maybe able to do some of the work yourself if you talk to the electrician. Like mounting new entrance, meter box, main panel and running connection between. pay him to connect and sign off.


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

I thought I'd tell the end of this little story. 

Got a new panel installed, 200 amp, line into it and the meter, etc. $1900. Fellows came in the morning, took a lunch break midday, finished and left in the mid afternoon.










Thing looks a little ridiculously big, but that's life. I won't have to run to the store to get new fuses if anything ever overloads.

New outside line looks a lot better and neater too now.

They took out both of the old panels. Had to put the new one at the foot of the stairs, not allowed to have them on the stairs anymore due to code.

Deo gratias it's done.


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## kasilofhome (Feb 10, 2005)

Label your breakers... the installer should have done that for you.. looks safer


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

Yes, I'm meaning to do it in a bit.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Very nice. Thanks for showing the result.


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