ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area 400-Amp Service

Lear, your'e right, I just wanted to throw that out there just to see what other people were getting. I talked to a friend of mine, who is also an EC, he came up with 52-54. This job is in the suburbs of Philly.

I'll try to be nice here...

I am not comfortab;e with a pricing question loke this for a few reasons; the main one being I have no idea what the job is REALY like. This forum has had a lot of threads about different aspects of pricing, and it has little to do with the prices of the pieces!

A service change is a particularly open-ended thing. Labor is usually my biggest variable. Even simple residential changes have taken me anywhere from 6 hours to 36!

The ground rod is a big variable. My last one went in, slow but steady, in about 15 minutes. I've had the blessed things take up six hours- and that's with a jackhammer. Another time, I wasted several hours before I gave up, and trenched it...there went another 6 hours!

Another variable is the condition of the original service. A box with all the wires coming in through a single hole, through a pipe from below (that I can shorten) is a lot quicker than some plumbers' nightmare, with all sorts of circuits added later, from every direction. Or, worse, the old one is setinto the wall, and piped in.

Indeed, what's missing from your parts list are the cans and gutters I almost always need to use.

You can't overlook the field conditions either. Firm earth, where you can park the truck next to you, is rare. More often you spend the day doing laps around the house. You're also likely to be battling the rose bushes, planted to hide the meter.

Access to power while you work makes a difference.

The PoCo will often charge to come break the meter seals, and there is usually a permit needed. The PoCo will also want to review any service upgrade, like the one you mention. If they feel that they need bigger wire, or a larger transformer, or to change over to three-phase....guess who pays for it?
(I know you mentioned "coordination with PoCo- but I'm making a general review of the topic).

I don't see any sort of mast on your list. Pipe is expensive, hardware adds up, and drilling through the eave -then sealing it afterwards- make this an important part of the job.

I've had jobs that used $200 in parts- and $1000 in everything else.

All I can say is that you must look the job over, decide how you will want to do it, and price accordingly. You really ought not care what the other guy charges. He may be making a mistake, doing a 'hack' job, or only be quoting part of the job.

Finally, price is affected by the customer. I will charge a regular customer, who pays promptly. a lot less than an unknown with a reputation for slow / no payment. I will charge more for work in the busy season. I will charge more for work in bad weather. Mean folks, and game players, get to pay more.

Decide your price- and stick to it! If they say "George wants less" tell them George is a fine man, they should hire George. If they want to provide parts, or do some of the work, you're probably better off politely declining. (I've lost count of the ditches that customers dug to less than half the required depth!)

It's a little unreasonable to expect us to price a job "over the net." A little story best illustrates this point:

My vet also hosts a local radio show about pets. One day, a man called, sking "How much to de-claw a cat." The vet, wanting to get some sort of conversation going, innocently asked 'what kind of cat do you have?' Expecting an answer along the lines of 'siamese' or 'tabby,' he was left speachless when the guy admitted to having a half-grown panther!

The service is really cut and dry. As for the rod, there is a lawn (dirt) right where the meter is. The meter is on the side of a garage, in the driveway , no obstructions. Parking is no problem the property has a huge driveway. I have to fill out a S&M form for PECO, that is only for a new meter. Peco doesn't charge for cutting the seal on residential properties and they will keep the same feed. There is no mast or piping, all 200-amp seu, straight up a wall.

IMO,

I don't believe you will be able to use (2) 200-amp seu cables for the line side. You will probably need to install a PVC raceway with properly sized service entrance conductors. The area of 4/0 is 211,600 cmil. Multiply that by 2 and you get 423,200.
Table 310.15(B) requires 600,000 cmil. al. for a 400-amp service.
Also, don't forget to make sure you have "double barrel" lugs on the load side to feed your 2 panels.

I already talked to my Inspector, the cables are fine, and the lugs that are supplied with the meter socket are ok too.

I'd be happy to get around $3200 here with the whole thing in RMC if it's straight forward. Ad to that anything that makes it more dificult.

Tom

Redsy,

I was thinking about the SEU, with that service we have to use conduit here, but he said he checked with the AJH, and as stated in previous post, job conditions can make a big difference in pricing, outside of Phily can mean after you drive the rod in 5 ft your on bedrock in some areas of north Phily, some of the EC's i know from the Valley Forge area are pretty much up there in their rates, so labor should be easy to figure, the material costs may change if he has to use conduit, but in Pa all you need to do contracting is a business card and running truck, so he must have a lot of resistance to pricing any job.