We are considering whether to add upgrading the electrical service for our house into the discussions with the GC who is remodelling the bathrooms and I’d like to educate myself a little as to what is involved and the likely costs. The reason for doing this is that the house as a whole is a little underpowered resulting in circuits breakers switching when certain appliances are run simultaneously. This doesn’t happen too often, but every couple of months. We will be adding a power vent to each bathroom and would like a WarmBoard radiant floor, but existing service won’t support it.
Currently (yes, there is a pun there) I believe we have a 60 amp service, according to the electrician who wired our addition 5 years ago. The house is 37 years old and I believe that the circuit board is original to the house, if that makes any difference. When we had the AC installed several years ago there was no room on the board so they installed some giant thing (single circuit?) next to the circuit board that might be incorporated into any new work to eliminate the extra. There is a subpanel in the garage for the power tools and lights there. The source to the house is a wire through the air, about 50 feet to the transformer.
Finally questions: Would 100 amp be sufficent for the new service? I hate to overdo it but on the other hand if we are going to the expense anyway, should we just have the excess there in case? What are some typical costs in your area of the country for an upgrade of this nature? Would an electrician even be willing to do this, or is the liability with the existing wiring too great? Are the additional costs ongoing? Will I most likely be paying more to the utility every month just because I have more potential (yes, another pun!), even if it is unused?
Thanks for any help.
Replies
I would put in a 200 amp service with new wire from mast head to breaker box. electric company should replace the wire from transformer to mast head in needed. As for cost call three electricians and get quotes.
wyatt
More of a Bump then anything.
My gut reaction is to tell you to go to at least 150 amps, you may not need it now though it would be nice to have in the future.
We upgraded service at 3 houses last year, all to 200 amp service because the price difference is not much between that and 150. Cost per change out, including installing a new meter can (provided by the power company) a new panel, all necessary breakers, and hooking everything up runs us on average, $1200.00
$1200 for 200A upgrade. Wow, that's cheap.
I just paid $2300 a few months ago in Mass. The previous panel was 100A Fuse. The job was to replace the panel with a new Murray 40/40 panel, new meter base, new 200A breaker, 20 assorted 15/20/30A breakers, new SE cable, new ground wire & rods and label the breakers. The quotes that I've gotten were in that range.
The original 1957 60 amp 110 v. service to my house in the S.F. Bay area was recently upgraded. This house has been rented for the last few years under the "care" of a rental management firm. Unfortunately, the management firm replaced the service under an emergency declaration and only told me they did it without input from me. The cost was not broken out on the monthly statement, so I am guessing it was in the neighborhood of $3000. This was an exterior panel on the stucco outside wall with eight circuits. The electricians appear to have screwed up the new roof (three years old) so that water has entered the bedroom adjacent to the riser from the panel. Not good since this roof is made out of 3"x12"x8' fiberboard panels (fairly common in Bay Area construction of that vintage but I have not heard of them used elsewhere.) If the stuff gets wet it doesn't last long. Will have to take a 600 mile drive soon and find out just what the story is.
One of the upsides of being in Kansas I guess ;)
plus that's are price, the electrician would charge a one time homeowner a bit more but I don't know exactly how much more.
I'm guessing by your name you're a mountain biker?
If so, I recently purchased one, do you have any suggestions on comfortable seats? the one that came on mine is not going to work long term.
I agree. Go for the 200 amp service. It's money well spent.Toolfanatic (a.k.a. The man formerly known as "Toolfreak")
It depends a lot on the logistics of running wires, what's where and what condition things are in. You may be able to save some money by going with a new panel that feeds the existing one as a sub panel. Or, if they're cheek by jowl, it may be better to turn the old panel into a junction box and feed everything in it from the new one. You'll want to divide up the circuits that trip their breakers to spread that load around. 200 Amp is a good safe cost effective way to go.
-- J.S.
Ditto on the 200 amp service. To answer your question about the power Co. cost for a larger service. You are charged each month for the wattage used not the size of your service panel. $1200 as stated above sounds like a good ball park number. Hire a reputable company. remember you have to sleep there. Hope this helps.
take a look at your local hd or lowes and price a 100,150 and 200, you'll see that the difference in price is very little.the main cost is labor. my opinon is go with 200 and never look back,when you sell and the buyer see's 8 extra spaces he will have a smile on his face.i have paid 550 for a new 100[thought it was a great deal] but most the time 900-1100 for good new 200 amp box.larry
hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
We needed to replace the service entrance for our house when we bought it, and did a "heavy-up" from 100A to 200A. Here, once you get the permit, the electrician sends a form to the utility letting them know the work will be done and that the meter will be unsealed. Part of the form was a survey of the electrical demand in the house so the power company can guess how much power you'll actually use and decide if it needs to upgrade the wires from the transformer to your house. I think it took about a day of the electrician's time to put the new SE cable on the side of the house, put the new meter base on, make the temporary splice between the old cable from the meter and the new cable from the meter, install the panel, route the circuits into it, and install the breakers. We also needed two inspections--one before the power company had done the changeover, and one after. The power company does the actual switchover, because power to the house needs to be shut off at the transformer in order to connect to the new SE cable, and only they can do that.
Thanks all of you for your help on this. $1200, or even $2000 isn't so bad when taken in the context of the value of the whole home. We're paying almost that much for the bathtub and we use electricity more often.
While I realize that the power company charges me for what I use, my local utilities also have a habit of charging me a baseline for my potential to use. For example, I have to pay for irrigation water whether or not I use it, the payment is based on the size of my lot. I pay the gas company each month for the privilege of being a customer whether or not I use a single btu. So I was thinking that 200 amp service might have a higher baseline than my existing service or 100 amp service. I guess the only way to really answer that question would be to ask the power company.
Another thing you might consider, "while you're at it (four very dangerous words in this business)," especially if power outages are at all frequent in your area, is to install an essential loads panel which can be powered by a generator (either portable or fixed). This panel will be separated from your main panel by a transfer switch to make sure your generator doesn't feed back into the utility's lines. In fact, you might be able to reuse your old 60 amp box (if it isn't really, really old and has fuses, for instance) as the essential loads panel, and put in a new 150 A panel, so your total will still be around 200 A (which I agree with all those other posts is the level to which you should upgrade).
Have the electrician put the essential loads, like the furnace, refrigerator, a few light circuits, well pump (if you have one), etc. in the 60 A panel, and run a wire from the transfer switch to outside to eventually hook up to the generator. When I did this for my own house, I also installed a watt meter on the generator feed, so I know just how many things I can turn on without overloading the generator.
Anyway, just an idea that won't cost a whole lot extra. The generator can wait until you can afford it, and even then, a pretty good one is only a few hundred dollars. Of course, it depends on just what you need to run. Your electrician should be able to estimate how many watts you'll need to power your essential loads.
Dr. Work
Thanks Dr., that is something I never would have thought of.
Good points. Please share with us where you can get a generator for a "few hundred dollars" that would run anything larger than a toaster? I realize few is a subjective term. For the items you listed I think you would be looking for something at least a 7.5 kw unless you were going to do some serious power management and only turn on one item at a time. I would not run my 3/4 hp pump off the 4kw I inherited.
Welcome by the way!
Edited 2/2/2006 11:00 am ET by rasconc
Aimless,
The problem that you describe, a circuit breaker tripping when appliances are run simultaneously, is not necessarily related to the main panel, although installing a larger panel will certainly be part of a successful solution.If you have several receptacles on the same circuit, be it a 15A or a 20A, the reason that the c/b trips is because that particular branch circuit is overloaded, not the 60 amp service as a whole. So unless the problem is that your existing panel has multiple hot wires attached to each c/b, you are going to have to do additional wiring from the new 200A panel to various appliance locations to correct the issue.On the other hand, if it's just that two or more circuits are fed off the same breaker, then a new panel will help - just run one circuit per breaker.Regarding the separate panel that was installed for your A/C, it might just be tied onto the service entrance cable after the meter but before the main disconnect of your existing 60A panel. Therefore, you are potentially overloading the service entrance cables by having more than one panel run off the same wires. There's inadequate overcurrent protection for the SE cables in that situation, if the A/C panel is wired in ahead of the main disconnect. Therefore, I agree with the person who suggested new SE wiring up to the masthead.Just be forewarned that installing a new 200A panel might not be the instant fix to your appliance problem.Hope this is helpful
Alec
Alec,
Thanks for the information. I realize that upgrading the panel won't solve the appliance problem, but because we are out of room on the board we can't run a new circuit to split things up. The problem circuit is in the kitchen, the same room as the breaker box, so at some point when we do work in the kitchen we will be able to add more circuits.
You're probably right about the AC wiring, but I don't know where the main disconnect is, so can't really tell. I'm just a wiring whiz ;). I'd definitely want to have it fixed if there is a hazardous condition. Is it possible to tell with this picture, or is this just not enough information?
Thanks,
Amy
Hard to tell anything from that picture other than it looks like it ought to be replaced! The flexible conduit that runs out of the box on the left, over the top of the main panel... it looks like that is cut off in the picture, or else it takes an awful quick turn into the wall. Is that the a/c panel on the left?
The conduit is cut off and the wires stick out of it. I had concerns when they installed it, but since I know so little about wiring I kept my mouth shut. The company that did our AC is reputable and has been around a long time, so I figured they must know what they are doing.
Yes, that box on the left is the AC.
Aimless,Definately replace that box !!Also, I can't believe the cut off conduit is kosher. I really don't believe it is. That's got to be up there in infamy, somewhere above hiding junction boxes in the wall...Go for the 200 amp with as many cb slots as possible and never look back.You know where I live, and how. And yet I have 200 amp service. I installed my own electric service for 1300.00. Complete from scratch. That included the pole, and other stuff that will not need to be redone in your case. They looked kind of askew at my installing 200 amps for just an RV service, but then I told them that I planned to someday build a cabin, and they relented. Point is... I live in a tiny trailer, and I have 200. -You- shouldn't even be thinking twice about going for the 200.Put in 200, have the ac box conduited all the way into the 200 box, (Should be fairly simple with the new 200 box.), and separate as many existing circuits as possible. For you- your new kitchen curcuit will then be a breeze.=0)If your power company wants to charge more because you have the capability of 200 amps now... I think I'd be telling them that you are going to have a talk with the local attourney general about fair business practices. (Or whatever phrasology works. LOL) Your bill should be based on usage, and nothing else...I would toss this existing box, unless you intend to build another outbuilding that will need power, or unless it would be an upgrade to the shop power if you replaced that box with this one.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer
How difficult would it have been for them to have done the job right ???
View Image
Did they just run out of connectors ???
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer
OK, you've convinced me, we will put it on THE LIST. That thing is growing. I've been waiting for this contractor since mid last year and if he doesn't open up soon my list is going to exceed my loan.
You may not have a main disconnect. i know that the old one on my house did not have one, straight into back of the panel from the meter base
built in 1955
Boy, you must have some heck of a toaster!
Yes, it does depend on your definition of a "few" hundred dollars. To me, that would be $300-400 or so. If I meant ~$200, I would have said "a couple hundred." So, for instance, MaxTool.com sells a 4400 W generator for $379, and I bet if you shop around the internet you will find even better deals. My 5500 W (with 9000 W peak) was only $560-ish a few years back (with free shipping), and I hardly use a fraction of its capacity. We just had a 24-hour outage a few weeks back, in fact, and despite having lots of things on, they barely registered on the watt meter.
Well, yes, unless you have a monster on a cement pad in your yard, you will have to do some kind of power sharing. But we're talking emergency use, so it's a small price to pay to keep your beer cold and the water running. A fridge only needs to run every few hours, and a furnace uses a very modest amount of juice. Now, if you have a heat pump, you're out of luck! In that case, get a woodstove, too. And if you have an essential loads panel, power sharing simply means turning on or off breakers in the comfort of your home, not fooling around with extention cords running through windows.
My well pump does indeed suck a lot of juice on startup (which is why I got a generator with high peak power), and I try to turn everything else off when I need to pressurize the system again. But most appliances don't have such a large short-duration surge.
It all depends on your budget, what you have to run, and your comfort level (or, more precisely, your discomfort level). That's why I said to ask the electrician for advice, and only buy it when you can afford it...
And thanks for your welcome. I've been around awhile, but haven't posted much.
We are on the same sheet, I was pointing out that 300-400 at retail will get you a pretty small gen. With a 3-4kw if you have a small lighting load, say 750w and a toaster that could be around 13-1500w, and your furnace fires up you are out of luck. Your unit has a larger spread on the constant to peak than most I have seen.
200 amp is the way to go. I replaced the old 100 amp with a 200 amp service. I was wired for 200 up to the house but not actually in it so it was relatively inexpensive and there is tonnes of room in the pannel. If your upgrading anyways you'd might as well get the good pannel the cost won't even be all that different. Goodluck
Your photo shows a "Pushmatic" service panel which is old and has known problems.Breakers that old are unreliable and this type has had many concerns through the years. My inspectors always recommend replacing Pushmatic panels and using new reliable service panels of 200 Amp or higher. Some small houses can get by on 150 Amp but with 200A you can handle about anything for a single family residence.A good electrical contractor will ensure everything going into the service panel is repaired or replaced and provide the safety you need. Ask for references and verify they satisfy their customers. Most times the utility requires a code inspection before they will hook-up. Upgraded service adds value to the home and helps when you are selling.
Wow, thanks for the info about the Pushmatic. We've had a couple of electricians see it over the last 8 years and not one mentioned a problem with it. Maybe our GC can suggest somebody better.
Thanks,
Amy
I'd like to make a general reply, one that is not specific to your some alone.
First of all, folks typically confuse "service size" with "number of circuits." Unless you're tripping your main breaker, you probably have enough service.
I'll qualify that with one detail....a few years ago, the folks who write the National Electric Code decided that every home should have 100 Amp service, or larger.
Strictly speaking, this only describes the size of the wires feeding your house...and the size of the main disconnect. You house will not have it's electric bill, or the performance of its' appliances, affected in the least by having a "larger service."
Now, it is very likely that an older home will need to have some changes made- changes that are often part of a "service change." These are a few such things:
You may have fuses; these will be replaced with circuit breakers. While an argument may be made that fuses work just fine, it is considered too easy for someone to replace a small fuse with a large one...leading to wires that are "hot" in more ways than one!
You may have multiple wires hooked to each fuse; these will each get their own breaker. Some folks have had some handyman tie the range, dryer, and water heater into the same circuit. This is unsafe, inconvenient, and should be dealt with at this time- or sooner,if you can!
An older home may have only two wires going to each receptacle. Whit a breaker panel, you can install GFI breakers; these will allow you to replace the two prong receptacles with three-prong ones- in a legally safe manner!
Old homes usually do not have a ground rod. A grond rod will be installed as part of the service change.
Over time, there have been many changes made to the way we wire homes. When you have the kitchen or bath remodelled, code will require you to give these areas their own circuits. A new breaker panel should have room for adding these circuits when the time comes.
There is a lot more to a "service change" than just swapping out the panel. Your work requires a permit from your city, as well as co-ordination with the power company. While many folks have done this on their own, I believe you really are better off hiring this job out- to a licensed electrician.
Thanks for your detailed answer. I am guilty of being one of those people who confused not enough circuits with not enough service. It never occurred to me that we could perhaps have a bigger panel without upgrading the service to the house.
This is definitely not a DIY job in this house - we will talk to the GC doing our bathroom about it and go from there.
"First of all, folks typically confuse "service size" with "number of circuits." Unless you're tripping your main breaker, you probably have enough service."Not exactly.Because of the restricted number of circuits. They are limited to what they can use now.Upgrade to more circuits and it is much more likely that the main will trip if the service is not up upgraded also.And to get a panel less than 100 amps with a large number of circuits you will need to buy a larger panel and exchange the main breaker in most cases.
Ask an electriction abou installing a 200 amp service and keeping the existing panel as a sub panel. This will give you plenty of space in the new panel for any new circuits and should cost less.
I think an interesting question would be how many BT'ers have actually popped a main breaker? Could you possibly use that much wattage in one moment of time in an average house (100 amp)
The only way I can think of if you switched from gas furnance to electric baseboard heat
Edited 2/6/2006 10:40 pm ET by curley
Not me but a customer of mine. I was wiring a new house for him and he said he tripped the 200 amp main in his old house only once. Comming home from vacation he turned the heat up and two heat pumps went into electric heatstrips at once. When the new house was finished a buyer for the old house had a pre-purchase inspection done and yep, the inspector got the main to trip again. I was asked to look into it and the 200 amp main would trip after a few minutes with a load of 165 amps on my clamp on ammeter when both heat strips came on, along with everything else we could turn on. Replaced the main breaker and it all went away. So if the breaker was not bad, then probably would have never tripped a main.Frank DuValYou can never make something foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
The problem may come about at loads somewhat smaller than the actual laod the main breaker is designed for. Let's look at a typical home. If it had a 25 amp requirement for the air conditioner, and a 30 amp water heater, and a 15 amp microwave, and a 50 amp electric stove.....you just might get everything drawing enough at the same time -remember that start-up current requirements for compressors (air cond and referigerator) are somewhat higher than the running amp load- to trip a 100 amp main breaker. With the addition of a serious workshop, this might make a service upgrade a smart thing. More often, though, all that are needed are additional circuits. A typical garage might have three circuits serving it; make that into a shop, and suddenly, you might want a few more, as well as some 220 circuits. This is not a "service" issue as much as a "distribution" issue.