Thanks for the input.
George
This is an existing house (20 years old). The problem is that the difference is quite large between leaving it as is, and a new 400 amp service. The city will make us put the new meter on the side of the house which makes it tricky getting through the finished basement ceiling to refeed the existing panel and finding an appropriate spot for the new panel. I’m going to throw out $5000 as a rough idea (maybe $6000).
Earl,
I admire your zeal for salesmanship. Yes, if it were new construction I’d push toward the 400 for obvious reasons, mainly being that for the extra cost now verses doing it later, you’d be silly to think there was any good reason not to go 400.
I don’t care either way about getting the job due to the PITA factor. But if I do sell him a 400 amp upgrade, I would rather that while I grunt, sweat, and scratch my head, it would help to feel like I’m doing this because it really needs it.
I just don’t feel convinced that the NEC’s load calc. method is appropriate for these bigger homes. And maybe that’s based on what we see the POCO doing (I know I’ve that discussion around here before) – 42,000 VA worth of calculated load fed off a 25KVA transformer with 5 other homes.
Sparky,
I looked back to July posts and didn’t see anything. It’s too easy to get distracted around here. I’ve only been here a few days and I’ve spent hours and hours looking at what people are saying. Should I expect this number to go up or down. I hope down once I get up to speed.
