Service upgrade cost?

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220/221 said:
The harm is that you are selling yourself short. I have a crapload of time and money invested in what I do for a living, now I can profit from it. Just because you are small doen't mean you have to work cheap.
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That pretty much sums it up right there.
 
In the top picture of the old service. What are the yellow rings around the legs coming in? I assume they are there for protection. Are they plastic or porecilin? I never have seen these before and was curious.

Thanks,
Jeff
 
220/221 said:
This was about $3400 if I remember correctly and worth every cent. I had to work those service conductors hot. It only took a day but it could have been my last day
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I mean this in the most loving way possible but why did you choose to work this hot and alone.
 
220/221 said:
Before, during and after. I can do them in a day too but not for $800 .



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One day? How many men? That's a lot of work.
 
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electricguy61 asked:
One day? How many men? That's a lot of work.


On a job like that there's very little room for a second person to do much more than hold tools for you. I'd like the help for the first hour or so to have help with the actual R&R of the gear... maybe someone to pound a rod and run the ground. But beyond that what is he gonna do the rest of the (long) day? Stand there to hold and and you tools?

I also can do them myself and generally prefer it that way but it's usually a longish day... especially when you have to add some splice boxes for the too always too short wire.

I don't think I've ever done a panel change without at least one Jbox or the whole job (with meter feed change too) in less than 10hrs on site.
 
electricguy61 said:
That was obvious. Both jobs look like a lot of work for a single man to accomplish in an 8 hour day
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And how many of those jobs may have the water at the other end of the home and it can take a few hours just to run the ground electrode and another hour to drive and run the 2 ground rods, roof mast always works better with 2 men.
 
electricguy61 said:
It takes my apprentice much longer to drive then rod then for me to tell him to do it:grin: .

I suppose you use the demo hammer method?
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Here you have to account for all the time with the two ground rods, first you need to call in the ground rod driving job to underground services, they come and mark out the area, you still need to check the area for other lines such as storm drains and septic lines, sewer lines, all takes time and in our area we may hit shale, and have to dig a trench, and install ground plates, some of these installations can take 8 to 8 hours alone.
Not every job, is a slam dunk ground rods install.

The EGC is another job that can be a easy fast run or a job that takes hours.
 
In the top picture of the old service. What are the yellow rings around the legs coming in?
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Load controller. It reads the KWH and starts shutting things down if you go over X amount at "peak" demand hours. You get a better KWH rate if you keep under X kwh during peak hours. THe WERE all the rage in the 90's. Now we just take them out and chuck em in the dumpster.


I mean this in the most loving way possible but why did you choose to work this hot and alone.
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It was hot but I had my helper there watching, waiting to call 911.

Sometimes it is difficult for the linemen to identify and disconnect the conductors at the transformeras there are several houses on it. I am certain he would have done it but this was a tricky one for him to get at and I had done them hot a few times before so I figured I could do it again.

I was careful. I feel the worst that could have happened would be to scare the crap out of me and kick some big fuses somewhere and put out a few neighbors.

Working hot stuff is NOT my favorite thing to do but that's why I get the big bucks.

Also, they sometimes "forget" to come back (2nd shift) and re energize. Worst case I could restore power myself as the house was occupied.


One day? How many men? That's a lot of work.
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I use a helper to run materials etc but it is pretty much a one man job. Not much room to work. I have done probably a hundred so I pretty much know the methods. It's a LONG day with no lunch (because I'm not bright enough to pack one) but they are always done by the end of the day.

The HARD part is dealing with city AND POCO inspections. They will show up at noon sometimes and I'm nowhere NEAR done. If I know them or if they are cool they will OK it. If they are having a bad day my office people have top get on the phone and start complaining ASAP.

I suppose you use the demo hammer method?
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Remember the olden days when the 20 pound sledge was normal operating procedure? I haven't hit anything yet with the demo hammer....that I know of. I can visualise the the pic on a plumbers snake cam though.
 
stickboy1375 said:
Why do all the branch circuits come into 1 single knockout? Thats a code violation...
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Apparently that's a common practice in AZ. It's one of those "regional practices" that's not NEC compliant but still has widespread acceptance.
 
stickboy1375 said:
Why do all the branch circuits come into 1 single knockout? Thats a code violation...
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At least it was a connector. I've seen pictures of such upgrades where they just brought them all through one of those plastic snap-in knockout bushings. I have to admit that it does make for an easy job, and if I operated in that area and it was commonly accepted, I might be tempted to do it the same way. I'm not really sure how cables in the wall could get jerked out of the panel. I do worry that there might be a localized hot spot in the cables near the center of that bundle at the connector.
 
I don't see it in my area very often, in fact, almost never, but a common one I've seen in my travels is to bring all of the cables into the panel through a single 2" romex connector.
 
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