Service Upgrade?

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velocity

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Hey Guys,

I am located in MD and wanted to know the timeline for completing a Service upgrade....say a 100 amp to 200 amp service. From the permit, completion of work PoCo and final inspection? I have been doing electrical work for about 16 years now and I just got my Masters license this past November. When you guys do an upgrade to get the PoCo to pipe in a temporary feed? $80 around here. I never got to do a complete job since I was sent evrywhere to put out fires.....usually going behind someone else buts thats an entirely different subject :D . Anyway any help would be great.

Thanks
 
Greetings from someone who lived in MD for five years! I had to move to Minnesota because Maryland just wasn't cold enough for me. :D

Are you talking about un upgrade where the existing service is underground, and you plan on having the new service underground, too? I've never done one like that. Where I work, services are mostly overhead, and the underground services are fairly new and already 200A.

The upgrade procedure is fairly straightforward here. I build the new service and tap the existing drop to power it, have the inspector sign off on it, then either he or I (depending on the jurisdiction) will file an affidavit with the PoCo notifying them that they need to come out to make the connection permanent and upgrade the service-drop wires if they choose to. Sometimes it takes them months to come out, but the disruption to the customer is not affected by that since I just tap the existing drop in the meantime. I just did one like that on Tuesday and had it inspected Wednesday.

I'm not sure how they'd handle it if the existing service was underground. I don't mine tapping their live conductors overhead, but I sure don't want to attempt that inside a new meter socket for an underground service. I suspect the way to go would be to build the new service away from the old one, and when the PoCo comes out to make the switch, migrate the old circuits to the new panelboard.
 
The first thing I would do with an underground service upgrade is call the power company and ask to speak to the engineer for the area you are working in. They may wish to look the situation over before you do anything. They may not do anything, if the service cable is big enough then you just replace the old meter base and start from there. The most important thing to do is schedule everything . Around here they want 2 days notice on non-emergency shut down work ( that's if you want them there at a specific time, like 8:00 AM ). Call before you dig
 
That should be fairly straightforward. Build the new underground service and power it with a temporary tap from your existing overhead service. Converting your existing 100A panelboard into a subpanel of the 200A one would probably be easier than swapping out the 100A panelboard, unless your existing 100A panelboard is FPE or something of similar "quality."
 
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