Have a really old Zinsco electrical panel in my home. It has pretty much the normal household appliances and lighting circuits with the exception of two 60amp circuits that feed my shop. I have also found out that my furnace isn't on it's own circuit and I have no room to add another circuit. I will need an electrical contractor to upgrade it, what should I look for in a bid and what would be a fair ballpark figure to do the job. Opinions on the type and amperage capacity of the panel would also be helpful.
Upgrading my electrical panel
2 reading
Steve Johnson
1 - 20 of 32 Posts
Joined
·
867 Posts
Have a really old Zinsco electrical panel in my home. It has pretty much the normal household appliances and lighting circuits with the exception of two 60amp circuits that feed my shop. I have also found out that my furnace isn't on it's own circuit and I have no room to add another circuit. I will need an electrical contractor to upgrade it, what should I look for in a bid and what would be a fair ballpark figure to do the job. Opinions on the type and amperage capacity of the panel would also be helpful.
Joined
·
41,598 Posts
I would just get a couple or three bids from reputable contractors and go with their recommendations but definitely get rid of the old Zinsco stuff.
Just make sure a permit is pulled and the job gets inspected.
See these videos;
http://aaaircond.com/electrocuted.htm
Just make sure a permit is pulled and the job gets inspected.
See these videos;
http://aaaircond.com/electrocuted.htm
I don't think you can go wrong if you get two or three competitive bids from local electricians. They should take care of getting the necessary permits for you and they can steer you in the right direction as to what panel you should install. Most electricians know their stuff really well, so it will come out right, and you will always like the upgrade.
Steve the cost will depend on the situation. Every situation is unique in what is involved to do the service change. Whether the service is overhead or underground, and how many circuits will be in the new panel, amongst many other things come into play. Keep in mind, many older homes had serices put on in ways that are now code violations and those violations have to be corrected prior to the new service being energized. It's common to find things like the overhead service risers being too close to a window, door, or a deck or a sump pump hole in front of the panel, and these all need to be corrected.
In my area here, I typically do 60-100 amp upgrades for $750-$1000, and 200 amp upgrades run about $1250-$1500. Again it all depends on the situation. If spomeone quotes you a service change without coming to look at it, throw that bid out.
Jeff
In my area here, I typically do 60-100 amp upgrades for $750-$1000, and 200 amp upgrades run about $1250-$1500. Again it all depends on the situation. If spomeone quotes you a service change without coming to look at it, throw that bid out.
Jeff
When upgrading to a higher amperage service, you need to check the electric meter to see if it is rated for the service you are installing. When I installed a 200 amp service in my house a few years ago I had to install a new meter base and the power company had to run new lines to the house. The new base and service has to be inspected before the power company will run the new lines.
James
James
Joined
·
867 Posts
Great info guys. When you talk about a 200amp panel does that mean that the maximum value of all breakers must be 200amps or less?
No. You can have more than 200 amps worth of breakers in the panel, that doesn't matter. The 200 amps refers to the maximum amperage of the new main disconnect. If you pull more than 200 amps at anytime, the whole house will shut off. If you pull more than 200 amps in your house I would be suprised. You would basically have to be in your garage welding with an air compressor running, while the central air conditioning is on in the house, and your wife would have to be drying a load of wash while she has a turkey in the oven. And even then, if the kids aren't in the hot tub, you're not going to have a problem
You said you have two 60 amp breakers running out to your garage, so I would recommend going to a 200 amp service.
Another thing to keep in mind. Zinsco breakers are very hard to find. When we (electricians) get service calls that involve Zinsco we charge boatloads of money for tham if we have some. That being said, your old breakers are worth some money to the right electrical shop. I know we would love to get those breakers, so if I were you, I would either a) keep the old breakers and not let the guys doing the service change take them or b) talk to whoever does it about getting a small break on the price if you let them take them, because they will make money on those breakers if they are smart. Try to find someone who will knock the price down a bit for those breakers. Don't expect huge amounts of money, but a small discount would be nice. Any shop that knows what they are looking at will be licking their chops to get them from you and not drop the price any.
So there's a little extra ammo for you.
Jeff
Joined
·
867 Posts
Very good to know about Zinsco breakers Dale. My current panel has breakers in all twenty slots with a total of 550amps worth of breakers.
One consideration is how much load you have in the house and garage... if you run electric heat in either you'll pretty much be automatically steered to 200A. Find out from your power provider if they will upgrade your incoming service to 200A, some will leave the original 100A feed from the street even though you have upgraded everything in your house to 200A -so then its wasted $$. Sticking with 100A (if this is what your house is) will save you some $ from replacing the meter socket etc., and you'll probably want a 48 circuit panel to give you some room for breakers and increase your flexibility. The amount of breakers isnt really an issue i probably had 300-400 amps of breakers in my 100A panel, 60 to the garage, a hot tub, etc.and i had no problems with 100A. If you think you'll be using a welder, air compressor, cooking, heating and washing clothes at the same time with all the lights on, then go 200A.
Quick SS, you probably know more about this than me, but if he wanted to, he could put in a 200A load centre, and leave his 100A incoming and upgrade at a later time if necessary? generally the only difference between the 100 or 200A tub is the larger bus bars (and the main breaker if you buy the kit)...so you can go down in Amps just not up...
Ak
Quick SS, you probably know more about this than me, but if he wanted to, he could put in a 200A load centre, and leave his 100A incoming and upgrade at a later time if necessary? generally the only difference between the 100 or 200A tub is the larger bus bars (and the main breaker if you buy the kit)...so you can go down in Amps just not up...
Ak
Holy cow, you have to be counting the main breaker in with that as well. Here's a typical panel: 1 40 amp breaker for the electric range, 1 30 amp breaker for the electric dryer, typically 1 30 amp breaker for central airconditioning, and maybe 15 or so 15 and 20 amp breakers for general purpose lighting and recepticles.
When you count, the breakers with the handles tied to together, or linked are counted only once. So a 40 amp breaker or the 60's you are seeing count as only 60 amps not 120 amps. This may not be the case for you, just saying that anything that is 240 volts will take two breaker spots, but the amperage only gets counted once.
I don't suppose you could post a picture of your panel, I would love to see that.
Jeff
Well let me start with saying, that whatever the power company does has for the most part no effect on what you do in your house. If the power companies laterals are only rated for 60 amps, he can still put in a 200 amp service and draw 200 amps. Nothing outside limits how much amperage a house can draw. The 200 amp main breaker is to protect your equipment, not the power companies. Not many people know this, but if you start at your main breaker and work backwards, so going outside, their is nothing that wil trip or turn off in the case of a fault. Well I shouldn't say nothing, typically it is like a 3 amp fuse in the transformer, but when you are pushing nearly 6000 volts thru it, that 3 amp fuse is not going to trip for anything. So as long as you are allowed, put on the service size you want. I have done many many houses with 325 amp services on them.
Second the largest panel you can get in 100 amp configuration is 32 space panel and two of those are gone with the main breaker. So 30 spots max. In 200 amp, you can get 42 space panels, again two are taken away with the main breaker so 40 available spaces. This is a NEC code that limits the panel sizes.
As far as putting a 200 amp load center on a 100 amp service, no, not legally. Here's how that works:
All electrical equipment must be listed and labeled. So a meter socket is either labled for 100 amp or 200 amps, or larger. The meter socket enclosure itself doesn't matter for the most part, it's the lugs inside the enclosure that are rated. Now the main breaker is there to protect the service entrance conductors, those that go between the meter socket and the main disconnect. So if you put a 200 amp breaker on a 100 amp meter socket, what you are doing is using a 200 amp over current protection device to protect conductors that are only rated for 100 amps. If you change the service entrance conductors to say 4/0 aluminum then the conductors will handle the 200 amps, but now the meter socket lugs can't.
Now you could go the other way if the local power company allowed it, ours here won't. But you could do a 200 amp meter socket, and then install #2 aluminum conductors and a 100 amp main breaker and it would be safe.
Jeff
When getting quotes take into consideration additional costs for running new circuits, splitting existing and replacing substandard existing. If you have aluminum wire it could get costly. When I upgraded to 200A it cost about 2K but they had to run new home runs because the previous owner had everything so screwed up it would not pass code. I sleep much better now. Also depending on where it is located and what you want it to look like consider having blank conduits for future stuff ran into the attic or crawl spaces. I did and it saved time when we added AC and circuits for the shop.
Joined
·
867 Posts
Jeff here are some pics
![Image]()
Joined
·
8 Posts
bottom line is pay a little more and get a person like jeff who knows whats going on and a person like jeff who can fix every thing he finds wrong and still will pass inspection and the carsssssss will still be safe i mean children
Hi Jeff, my 100A panel is 48 circuit 9we dont follow NEC up here) its a federal brand. Also the incoming line size affects the amperage you can use, this is why if you really think you need 200A, then the copper needs to be sized that way to the street. If it isnt then putting 200A load center, meter socket etc in is a waste of time, but most electricians will upsell you without calculating the loads you really have (this gets more complex).
Many new areas are all sized to 200A wire for the incoming service size, but many old areas are not (i.e. 50 year old areas). In that sense you most you can draw from the street is 125+/- amps, the utlity company is too lazy to upgrade for you, and you are right your 200A breaker protects your house, not their incoming service, so if you put in 200 or 325A and they are running undersized copper to your house you will only fry their wires.
ak
Many new areas are all sized to 200A wire for the incoming service size, but many old areas are not (i.e. 50 year old areas). In that sense you most you can draw from the street is 125+/- amps, the utlity company is too lazy to upgrade for you, and you are right your 200A breaker protects your house, not their incoming service, so if you put in 200 or 325A and they are running undersized copper to your house you will only fry their wires.
ak
Really, I didn't realize Alaska doesn't go by the NEC, what do you guys up there use as far as codes, just a standard state code? I guess a lot of what's in the NEC would have to be revised for the conditions up there anyways, so that makes sense.
What I was saying is that no matter what size conductors the power company has to the house, you can still pull 200 amps thru them. Their is nothing outside that just automatically says you can't draw more than 100 amps and shuts you down at that. Unless steve's house has an original 60 amp on it, which we can see it doesn't, pretty good chance the conductors will be OK. Line side conductors are rated completely diffrent than load side conductors because of the ambiant temperatures and the fact that they typically never enter a building, so the power company can run conductors sized well smaller than we can on our end. Power companies are diffrent everywhere you go. Here, if we want to upgrade, the power company just automatically schedules it to install a larger conductor if it's needed.
If you ever get a chance AK, I would love to see a picture of a 48 circuit panel. That thing has got to be large. I am shocked at a 100 Amp 48 circuit panel, seems very easy to really overload that main breaker.
Edit: I now see you are not in Alaska but rather Canada. So does Canada have something similar to our NEC?
Jeff
Joined
·
338 Posts
Being a lineman for our local power company.We come out after a House has had a rewire and inspector has called us upon completion.We then check connections at the weatherhead to see if they comply with our standards.Then we seal the meterbase and determine if the service needs a replacement from an older 3 wire to a newer #4 triplex or 1/0 service.quikss ss is correct ,we usually don't upgrade our transformers untill the customers load on that transformers kva rating is exceeded.
we have a provincial electrical code similar to your NEC, we have a Nat'l Building Code similar to your UBC and other ones you guys follow (can't remember the names off hand). its a 48 cicuit panel with the main breaker not included in the 48. i used that as my sub panel as i just upgraded to 200A, so i have a 40 circuit 200A panel beside it and now i just feed it with 60A breaker, bigger loads are in my 200A panel. my utility provided didnt want to upgrade my incoming service to heavier copper since i didnt have electric heat etc. said i wouldnt need it, i was pissed that i went to the trouble of upgrading to a 200A service and they wouldn't upgrade their 50 year old incoming service, so i told them that i dont have electric heat, but i have a hot tub, garage, weleder, compressor, and an induction cooktop.... they pulled new wire from the pole for me...
i was surprised that my new wall oven (40A) only uses something like 16 ga stranded wire, when i have to pull something like #8 to the box! at first i thought it was defective wiring! ...then i learned about stranded wire...
ak
i was surprised that my new wall oven (40A) only uses something like 16 ga stranded wire, when i have to pull something like #8 to the box! at first i thought it was defective wiring! ...then i learned about stranded wire...
ak
Just curious, what are some good brands of load centers?
Next summer, my 100A panel will be upgraded, since it's an old GE pushmatic or something. I only have 15A in the garage (already tripped the circuit with lights and compressor).
I'm planning a 200A for the main, and 100A in the detached garage.
Next summer, my 100A panel will be upgraded, since it's an old GE pushmatic or something. I only have 15A in the garage (already tripped the circuit with lights and compressor).
I'm planning a 200A for the main, and 100A in the detached garage.
1 - 20 of 32 Posts
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
