To support the new hot tub, and any other upgrades to home appliances and amenities, we decided to upgrade the electrical service to the house from 100 amp to 200 amp. This requires collaboration with the carpenter (me), city (building permits/inspectors), electrician and power company. You first get your permits, then schedule w/ the utilities (24 hours notice) to shut the power off to the house, then have the electricians install the new service so inspectors will pass it and “green tag” the job, otherwise the power company will not hook the power back up. See below:

Preparing to disconnect the power from the house.

Power company technician cutting the power, literally.

Tying off the wires temporarily so they don’t have to be re-strung from the power pole.

Technician unlocks meter and removes it.

I cut the siding and used some of my extra cedar decking to frame out a base for the new service box.

The electrician mounts the new box, conduit and wire.

The new wire is terminated, making sure each stripped end is coated in anti-corrosive.

Adding offsets (bends) in the conduit pipe for a clean install. I removed one of the boards off the deck to make the job go smoother.

Installing conduit to allow running the ground wire and also the wire to the west side of the patio for the hot tub. We also added another conduit for running underground wire to the garage and getting that up to code as well.

Inspector green tags the box and power company technician hooks up the wires from the pole and you have upgraded electrical service. You can optionally upgrade your service panel within the house (where your breakers or fuses are). I’m told a service upgrade and service panel replacement (inside) can add $10,000 value to the house.

For my house, I had to cut some siding and build up a frame to install the new box, plus move the cable box. The job took about 5 hours and the electrician bill was $1315.00 for parts and labor. I paid another $77 for permits for both the service upgrade and hot tub. Other electrician quotes were $1800 - 2400 but I’m told upgrading the electrical service is a 3-4x return on investment with the value it adds to your home. Now we can support our central air conditioning and hot tub, plus any other services we decide to add in the future.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Knowledge, My Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. This post has been viewed 1,370 times.