Electrical-Should I go convert 100 amp to 200amp?

[iibgdi]

1906 house. 5 BR. Will be a college rental. Anywhere from 5 to 9 tenants.

Gas furnace, water heater (for now)and dryer.

At inspection, (after accepted offer) had an electrician come through and make the following recommendation:

"The 100 amp main breaker in the electrical panel has been overheated (The oxidation seen on top of the main breaker in the attached photo shows the results), There is 1 double tapped 20amp breaker feeding 15 amp wire and 1 40 amp breaker feeding 30 amp wire.

We would remove the current 100 amp panel and install a new 100 amp 20 circuit Siemens panel with a main breaker. $685"


Would you do ^ this? or would you upgrade to 200 amp service?

I haven't received a quote yet for the 200amp change. Have a guy coming this weekend. what could I expect to pay for this? I think the mast on the side of the house would have to be changed in order to do this.

*Disclaimer.....I know nothing about electrical so hopefully i am using the correct terminology.

 

[Mustang51js]

The price for panel replace is close to what I would charge, I usually do $600 for 100 amp change with materials included. Now for a new service upgrade to $200 amps I charge $1800 but you can expect a price from $1600-$2400.

 

[borgdog]

3 years ago when we bought our 1963 house we had them upgrade the electric from 100 amp to 200 amp with a new panel and fix a bunch of shoddy PO wiring at the panel end. Cost was ~$1500. With your scenario I would definitely upgrade.

 

[iibgdi]

The price for panel replace is close to what I would charge, I usually do $600 for 100 amp change with materials included. Now for a new service upgrade to $200 amps I charge $1800 but you can expect a price from $1600-$2400.

Mustang, what are your thoughts on whether or not I should actually do it?

There could be lot's of traffic in the house. Lot's of females.....Do you think 100 amp would be sufficient or would I be best served to bite the bullet and pay for the upgrade to 200amp?

 

[sberry]

How about cooking and AC? But the problem usually isn't the incoming as is the distribution, does the kitchen counter have a couple circuits and a dedicated to the bathroom? 685 for a change out is some real incentive to have it done.

 

[iibgdi]

How about cooking and AC? But the problem usually isn't the incoming as is the distribution, does the kitchen counter have a couple circuits and a dedicated to the bathroom? 685 for a change out is some real incentive to have it done.

Stove IS electric. There is a central air unit.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer your circuits questions (I will ask the electrician these questions this weekend) but the 685 is just for changing the 100 amp box. Something that I WILL do if I don't go to 200 amp.

 

[Richard Cranium]

if it is going to be a rental, go 200 amp, You will not be sorry, Then later if more circuit are needed you will be able to add them with out replacing the breaker box again. Just my two cents worth...Rich

 

[jvitez]

Nothing wrong with going to a 200 amp service, but do you really need it? Max capacity is 24,000 watts for a 100 amp service and 48,000 watts for 200 amp service. Can you see more than 24,000 watts being used at the same time? Time for some math!

You said you've got a gas furnace, water heater and dryer. Good. Will you have more than 1 stove? How many? What is the wattage of the AC? Add up the wattages of everything electrical that you ever forsee being on at the same time, divide by 240, and are you more than 100 amp? If so, upgrade. If not, change the panel but keep the 100 amp service.

I'd definitely install a 40 space panel whichever way you go; it gives you lots of room for adding circuits, which will probably be more important in a rental than total load.

 

[mbatarga]

college student rental -
dozens of appliances plugged into each bedroom with limited outlets, stereos, phone charges, video games and large flat screen tvs, hairdryers...
yes - upgrade to 200 amps!

 

[Mustang51js]

Mustang, what are your thoughts on whether or not I should actually do it?

There could be lot's of traffic in the house. Lot's of females.....Do you think 100 amp would be sufficient or would I be best served to bite the bullet and pay for the upgrade to 200amp?

I think 100 amps is enough power but you might want to have a couple outlets with separate circuits ran. Usually bathroom outlets are separate and maybe do one by a window in each room in case they do window ac units. Prob get away with 2 outlets per circuit for that. Maybe look into a small sub panel off the side if you think you will run out of panel spaces.

 

[Mustang51js]

It never hurts for resale for the 200 amp service, but just remember that it doesn't matter how big the service is the branch circuits are still the same. I often get customers that have tripping breakers and think that upping the service will fix it and in reality they need to separate what they have now.

 

[volleyball]

If you go 200, you really should run a lot of circuits to distribute it. You will avoid calls for breakers always tripping.

 

[ForceFed70]

Most of these replies make me raise an eyebrow.

You do not need more than 100A. As Volleyball has mentioned, even if you did upgrade to 200A service you wouldn't be able to distribute it anyway.

Standard service on a brand new gas-heated home is still 100A.

If nothing else, just buy a 200A rated panel and stick with the 100A service for now. If you find that you are actually tripping the main (I really doubt it'll happen) then you can always upgrade the service then and should only need to swap out the main breaker in the panel.

FWIW: I used to rent the basement out of our old house. 2 families, 4 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, central air, 2 laundry rooms, 240V in the garage for welder and powdercoating oven, etc. We had gas heat and hot water. In 6 years we never tripped the main breaker once or saw any signs of overloading the service. Electrician did warn me that we'd need to upgrade the service if we ever wanted to install a hot tub tho.

 

[brownie]

I cant see a reason why you would ever need 200 amps thats just spending extra money for no reason. Not sure what part of the country your from, in the philly area its usually around 1800-2500 for a 200 amp service change.

 

[iibgdi]

Most of these replies make me raise an eyebrow.

You do not need more than 100A. As Volleyball has mentioned, even if you did upgrade to 200A service you wouldn't be able to distribute it anyway.

Standard service on a brand new gas-heated home is still 100A.

If nothing else, just buy a 200A rated panel and stick with the 100A service for now. If you find that you are actually tripping the main (I really doubt it'll happen) then you can always upgrade the service then and should only need to swap out the main breaker in the panel.

FWIW: I used to rent the basement out of our old house. 2 families, 4 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, central air, 2 laundry rooms, 240V in the garage for welder and powdercoating oven, etc. We had gas heat and hot water. In 6 years we never tripped the main breaker once or saw any signs of overloading the service. Electrician did warn me that we'd need to upgrade the service if we ever wanted to install a hot tub tho.

Thanks again for all of the help. You guys just saved me a bunch of money....I am meeting with the electrician to discuss.

 

[sberry]

Yes, that was my point, for 685 it makes it not such a hard decision to replace old damaged panel. Nope, 9 college students wont overload a 100 and its likely they are all Miss Kay with 4 things on hi on the stove and the oven n broil. The central is a factor and a guy could swap ranges to gas, I have done that. I seen a couple overloaded 60;s but they had cooling, water heater and elec dryer going like a bat out of hell.

The saving grace on this service is water heater, 9 kids will use that. But it takes a lot to use much real power in misc fashion. Its well worth making sure this old crate has new low flow fixtures, faucets, shower heads and would be well worth a change in stools in some cases.
I have some old buildings. I have added stuff as it changed and not scared to run a wire to a counter top if its light, new circuit for a toaster, I would be giving it a walk thru and seeing if I had to add wire to bathrooms etc. My Grandparents never trip a circuit with bedroom on bath along with a couple other outlets that wouldn't be legal today or they didn't run 2 electric heaters.

 

[sberry]

I got one circuit has 25 outlets along with small AC on it. I got some places I could go back and combine a couple things that got put in one at a time and are now redundant or been finished. I had 20 people, 3 hp well, air comp. pressure washer, laundry, power tools, welder, half a dozen fridges old style fixtures run from 100.

 

[sberry]

The place where 200 really shines is for a diy where the whole service needs to be new, the cost of parts only a sliver more or we going to own something a long time we want to add on to. I needed another new panel during a project due to spaces. made easy sense to go to 400 since they were buyng the new base and had to upgrade the wire to bring it in,,, ha

If its something I own I might not even want the new where the old is. If I change the location there is some incentive to upgrade it.

 

[sberry]

Thanks again for all of the help. You guys just saved me a bunch of money....I am meeting with the electrician to discuss.

Now you got a little to go on and a good contractor will try to sell you a little additional circuit work in this case which is highly likely where any real issue would occur.

I sent a guy to do a job a while back, should have sold the guy a new ktop circuit as well as fix the violations.