electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
Just curious what others' experience is with factory gear orders and pricing. Specifically I am talking about 200-1200 panelboards, safety switches, and circuit breakers.
1. Ever priced out the same brand gear from different distributors and got significantly different prices?
2. Find any brand to be less expensive in general or in a specific category?
3. Any other comments/experiences you would like to share?
I'll go first with a comment/curiosity. I am pricing out a 1200 amp 277/480 panelboard and got a quote from Siemens, and a 3 pole 480 volt 400 amp breaker (JXD63B400) is $825 when purchased with a panelboard vs $2900 purchased separately. A bare P4 1000 A MLO is $650. Now I am well aware of those ridiculous prices for buying solo parts and breakers and that you are often better of buying a panelboard and taking the breaker out, but what I was surprised about was a quick google of the breaker number showed that I could buy it online new for $725. I thought that was quite a discrepancy from the $825 from the local distributor. These online places, do they just purchase panelboards chock full of breakers, take the breakers out and scrap the rest? They are still able to sell it for a $100 less and make a profit - this is mainly what brought up my question number 1.
1. Ever priced out the same brand gear from different distributors and got significantly different prices?
2. Find any brand to be less expensive in general or in a specific category?
3. Any other comments/experiences you would like to share?
I'll go first with a comment/curiosity. I am pricing out a 1200 amp 277/480 panelboard and got a quote from Siemens, and a 3 pole 480 volt 400 amp breaker (JXD63B400) is $825 when purchased with a panelboard vs $2900 purchased separately. A bare P4 1000 A MLO is $650. Now I am well aware of those ridiculous prices for buying solo parts and breakers and that you are often better of buying a panelboard and taking the breaker out, but what I was surprised about was a quick google of the breaker number showed that I could buy it online new for $725. I thought that was quite a discrepancy from the $825 from the local distributor. These online places, do they just purchase panelboards chock full of breakers, take the breakers out and scrap the rest? They are still able to sell it for a $100 less and make a profit - this is mainly what brought up my question number 1.