Electrical Service - Buried vs Overhead Cost

[rvr6000]

Howdy - just wondering if anyone has any ballpark figures on the cost of getting new electrical service installed (cost per foot for overhead vs buried.) Service run is going to be about 900'. At least I'll be splitting it with my brother.

Thought I might have seen a discussion about this before but couldn't find anything in a search. Thanks for the help.

 

[Gooch]

Howdy - just wondering if anyone has any ballpark figures on the cost of getting new electrical service installed (cost per foot for overhead vs buried.) Service run is going to be about 900'. At least I'll be splitting it with my brother.

Thought I might have seen a discussion about this before but couldn't find anything in a search. Thanks for the help.

900 feet is a long ways for a service drop, pretty sure the POCO is gonna run the distribution lines closer which will cost you a small fortune.

 

[Aceman]

Talk to your utility first.

 

[Rich720]

Definitely talk to your utility company, the utility I work for you would have a couple options, both with some significant costs.
We would build an overhead line back for you, and we would need trees trimmed/removed depending on conditions. Some people are dead set against tree trimming and removal.
You could install your own underground primary wire, we would supply a pad mount transformer and make connections at the overhead pole and transformer.
Again contact your utility and see what options they offer.

 

[Stuart in MN]

I assume you're served by Xcel Energy. The best thing to do is give them a call; I work with them on a daily basis, and I can tell you there's no way to guess what it's going to cost other than it will be somewhere between free and a million dollars.

 

[John in OH]

I don't have any quantitative information for you to analyze, but I retired from an electric utility (generation side, not lines side). On several generation projects where we had to run service to gas turbine facilities, it proved in each case to be cheaper to run the service overhead rather than underground (these were both fairly straight-forward installations). I even tried to tilt the specs in favor of underground, but I just couldn't get the contractor's bids to change enough .... so we ran overhead.

I'm sure this cost comparison could change depending on the specific conditions associated with your installation (terrain, trees, streams, soil conditions, etc.), in my limited experience where there were no significant factors, the O/H came out cheaper.

 

[rvr6000]

Okay...I guess I mis-spoke.

Yes, I know the power company is going to run another distribution line over from the one on the east side of the property and add a transformer....if anyone has been in this situation recently what did it cost. Just looking for a SWAG.

 

[RPH]

Talking with Detroit Ed for my work they wanted $10.00 per foot underground and $1800.00 for the transformer. Still talking!

 

[fefarms]

In 2002 I had a line extended 3000 feet. The power company took two bids for trenching the line using a cable plow. The low bid was $6000, high bid was $18000. Naturally we took the low bid. The wire and transformer cost another $6000.
Total cost of the job was $12000, or about $4.00 per foot.

The 7200 volt primary was run in direct burial coaxial #2 aluminum cable. My property is fairly easy digging with no rocks or tree roots. The power company engineer I worked with said underground lines needed to be run reasonably close to roadways to provide future access for service equipment, so they wouldn't agree to a straight shot through the field (which would have been 500 feet shorter).

The whole job was cheaper than it otherwise might have been because 2002 was right in the aftermath of the dot com bust. There was (at the time) a substantial overcapacity of contractors set up to run underground cable, as there had been a lot of work in the mid to late 1990s pulling fiberoptic cable for the telcos to provide the internet backbone.

 

[dtt454]

im sure like the guys said, youd better talk to the utility company, just for sake of knowing though i put my powerline underground here a year ago, i did all the trenching myself and the conduit was on my dime. they charged 5 dollars a foot to run the cable. they were very helpful and had a thing already printed up that says what materials i need, how deep, and other requirements i needed to adhere to.

 

[Stuart in MN]

It doesn't make any difference how it's done elsewhere, each electric utility has their own rules and regulations.

This is from the Xcel manual:

1. Service Installation

a. Residential. Company will extend, on private property, to a Company designated service location, a service lateral a maximum distance of 100 feet. When the necessary extension to a Company designated service location exceeds these limits, the customer will be charged for the additional extension according to the Excess Footage Charge set forth below. Customers requesting a preferred service location will also be charged the Excess Footage Charge for each circuit foot Company extends the installation beyond Company's designated service location.

Excess Footage Charge Services $6.85 per circuit foot

I didn't take the time to look through the entire manual to see what they say about overhead vs. buried services, but there's more information online at : http://www.xcelenergy.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/docs/Me_Section_6.pdf

You still need to call Xcel to find out what exactly needs to be done. 1-800-895-4999.

 

[keweenawbee]

I recently had a neighbor install a service about that distance underground. He did pay another guy to clear the forest path with his excavator beforehand but the utility charged him around $1400 for the underground, which included meter and transformer hookup. This is in upper Michigan and it was UPPCO. I paid around $250 for 150 feet but I talked them into using a 2" conduit I had run the whole distance and under the main road ahead of time with my mini excavator.