Cost of a service upgrade

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jeff43222

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Minneapolis, Minnesota
I'm doing a service upgrade on a single-family dwelling this week, and I was amazed at how much I spent on materials for the job today. I'm upgrading it from 60A fuses to 150A. I actually spent over $1000! Here are a few prices (pre-tax):

Siemens 150A 30/30 panelboard: $170.22
Milbank meter socket with 150A breaker: $382.29
90' #1 Cu THHN: $185.65
15' of 2/0 Al SER: $37.45

Am I paying too much, or are you guys seeing prices like this, too?
 
Jeff, is your panel a 3R? The price sounds like it is. If it is indoor single phase, your paying much more than I do and I live pretty far from the nearest railroad terminal. Home Depot has contractor special 200 amp indoor load centers with several breakers included for around 95 bucks where I shop. My regular wholesaler would charge me 110 bucks for a 30-30 panel. An outdoor rated panel costs more. C.H. meter sockets are cheaper than the price your quoting for your Millibank also, if your poco allows them.
 
Yeah, I had a feeling the panel price was a bit steep, even with the price of copper being what it is. The 200A panel was a few bucks cheaper, but I'm pretty sure I could get it much cheaper at Big Orange. The panel is just a single-phase indoor one.

Around here, the EC provides the meter socket (POCO requires bypass type), and if you need a 150A outside disconnect switch, that's the sort of thing you can't always find at the box stores. I've never seen a socket/switch combo at the box stores. I went with that option because buying them separately would have cost about $100 more.

I do strictly residential work (mostly remodel jobs on pre-WWII houses), and I can get most of what I need at the box stores, where the prices are usually much better for the exact same stuff. But if I need anything out of the ordinary, it's usually not available at the box stores. I prefer shopping at the supply houses, but the price difference is making it hard for me to continue that practice.
 
buy panels and wire from big box, the rest at the supply house, or tell them you saw big box has the panel for this price and ask if they can help you out, you'd rather get it from them (supply). My supply house treats me like gold, but they know I don't get everything from them. I'm running about 3 crews right now and buy them crab cakes for lunch on occasion, but was a 1 truck show not long ago.
 
Sorry to go off topic here but I have a question.

Why 150 amp?

Other than conductor price isn't the cost pretty much equal for 125 to 200 amp services?

The panels I work with will typically have either 100 or 225 amp busing so any rating between 101 and 225 results in the same panel just different OCP.
 
I went with 150A because I like to be different. :D

OK, I do have a couple of better reasons:

1. A PoCo lineman once told me the triplex they use is only capable of 170A, and they don't put in anything bigger if someone installs 200A. So you really don't get 200A service.

2. The HO has been using 60A service for the last 40+ years, so I figured 150A would be more than enough. Her 30-slot panel now has 11 slots being used including one new one I installed for her.

3. 150A installs are a little easier because of the smaller panel and smaller conductors. In this case, I ran SER from the meter/disco to the panelboard through a 2" LB, plus the GEC from the disco. It was fun enough pulling three 2/0 conductors plus the two grounds. I recently did a similar 200A service and found out pulling 4/0 SER through the LB was more fun than I deserve.
 
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jeff43222 said:
I went with 150A because I like to be different. :D
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:cool:

Reason enough right there. :)

1. A PoCo lineman once told me the triplex they use is only capable of 170A, and they don't put in anything bigger if someone installs 200A. So you really don't get 200A service.
Click to expand...

Well I understand what your saying but IMO is not anything we as electricians should be thinking about.

The service rating is based entirely on the NEC covered equipment.

If the power company feeds it with 14 AWG zip cord is not a factor.

If you go down that road and start looking at what the transformer ratings they use you will find that very few services could draw their full NEC rating indefinitely.

As an recent example I was involved with some commercial service changes on two ajacent buildings.

Between the two buildings we installed two 100s one 200, one 400 and one 600 amp services.

The power company supplied all of that (1,400 total) with about a 2/0 copper quadplex. :D

It will work fine as the power company knows the 'real' load as opposed to the calculated loads.
 
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Bob,

Another reason you may want to use 150, is the home may be a split level and the existing GEC is #6 , running a new GEC may become a challange, if there is no additional load, and it was operating on 60, then 150 may be a bit over, we have found the difference in pricing from 150 to 200 is not just a little, now with increases it's a good piece of change.

Some prefer to use residential conductors, but if you use full size, the cost for copper is up there.
 
In this case, I ran copper from the service point to the meter can, and Al SER from there to the panel. I used to use copper exclusively, but I think that if I stick to that policy, I'm going to price myself out of some jobs.

As for the issue of the GEC and having to change it, I wasn't so lucky. I found no evidence of a GEC installed on the old service, so I had to put in all new grounding. On the other hand, split-levels are extremely rare in the city, and most services are installed in basements, so I had that working in my favor.
 
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