# Cost to upgrade service



## Woodcrafter74 (Oct 5, 2005)

I have to ask you sparkies if I'm getting jacked here. I just built a workshop on my property and wanted to run 50amps from the current service in my house to the new workshop. Trouble is I only have 100amp in the house, so it was time to upgrade. 
I was going to do the work myself under the direction of an electrician friend of my mine. Trouble is the power company won't cut or reconnect the power without a permit pulled. My friend has a license, but it's in a "shelved" status because he works for a large manufacturing company and does have to keep it current, so he can't pull the permit. I can pull one as a homeowner, but it takes 10 working days--which I don't have. 
So I called the local electrical contractors (the ones with several nicely lettered trucks, so I knew I'd pay a premium), they gave me a quote for running a new service cable down the house, a new meter, new 200amp panel and changing over all the wiring from the old panel to the new-----$3,505!!! (Didn't include anything relating to running power to the workshop) I thanked him, paid him the $49 for the estimate that was agreed upon upfront and told him I would not be using his company. 
I did find another local electrician who is doing the same thing this Tuesday for $1,260. Still seems a little high to me, but I've never hired an electrician before. So what do you think, seem resonable?
I'm thinking the first company may not do any work at all--just go around charging for estimates. 
Maybe I'm in the wrong trade.


----------



## Speedy Petey (Sep 30, 2003)

$3500 for a 200 amp service is robbery. 
$1250 is too low IMO, probably a side job or new contractor.

As for the first guy, he charged you for an estimate for a service upgrade??? Is this common for any of you guys out there? I would feel guilty to charge $50 to look at a service. Unless of course I had to travel 1/2hr to get there and the guy wanted the estimate in writing.


----------



## mdshunk (Mar 13, 2005)

Speedy Petey said:


> $3500 for a 200 amp service is robbery.
> $1250 is too low IMO, probably a side job or new contractor.


My sentiments exactly. 

I don't know your labor market, but I'd probably be somewhere right in the middle for a new 200 amp service and running 50 amps to a small panel in a detached building.


----------



## Woodcrafter74 (Oct 5, 2005)

Actually MD, the quote was just for upgrading the 200amp service. I'm doing all the 50amp work myself (I'm having my friend make the final connections at the panels). 

Regarding charging for estimates, I've seen that here before from the big HVAC company, though they call it a service call charge. If you agree to have them do the work, they'll subtract the estimate/service call fee. They're just trying to weed out the tire-kickers.


----------



## mahlere (Aug 6, 2006)

there was another thread here about different forums, well here is a thread from a different forum that morphed into being exactly what this thread is about.

btw woodcrafter - you will always find someone cheaper. the first guy may have been more than you want to spend, and that is fine. his target audience are the people who are willing to pay his price for what he is offering. don't worry.

http://electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum20/HTML/000479.html


----------



## Speedy Petey (Sep 30, 2003)

mahlere, I hadn't seen that thread over at ECN. 
Needless to say I do NOT agree with you or that venture dude with regard to pricing. $5k is too much for a 200 amp service and the $3500 you charged for that 100 amp is WAY too much. The time you broke down IMO was so far inflated I was stunnned. 1.5 hrs to estimate a 100 amp service? 5(!) hrs for genral admin???
Now don't get me wrong, if you can charge that, and live with yourself, and get repeat customers, you are a beter business man than me and are doing well for yourself.

Me, I have more conscience than that. Also, I am a very small contractor, just myself and a helper, and I live and work in a relatively small area. 100% of my work is referral, repeat or GC related. If I tried that mentality of pricing I would get laughed out of town and out of business. 
I like being small. I like working local for contractors I am familiar with. I have never been stiffed and have VERY good relations with my customers. 

In conclusion, I have a WELL stocked truck, we both wear company shirts (NOT uniforms; gay IMO), we are well groomed and represent ourselves very professionally. I will compare my work to your or that venture dude's ANY DAY of the week. My work is clean and neat. Hell, I get comments that my rough-ins are nice looking.
It IS possible to have all this and not rip people off.

I guess it all boils down to what you want to make and how you feel about yourself. I am less about what I can get away with.

Please don't take offense to this and this is truly not intended to start a flame war. It is simply giving my stance on this issue.


----------



## RobertWilber (Mar 5, 2006)

*hey guys, hold on ...*

If you haven't seen the job, how can you say what is a fair price?
I do $2500 200s and $1350 100s as a base price, but I just did a 100 for over 3k because of site conditions.
$3500 may be a gift, who can say?
I will give prices over the phone, conditional on what turns out to be the case when I get there, but I charge to come out and look. 
A service call is a service call.


----------



## mahlere (Aug 6, 2006)

Speedy Petey said:


> mahlere, I hadn't seen that thread over at ECN.
> Needless to say I do NOT agree with you or that venture dude with regard to pricing. $5k is too much for a 200 amp service and the $3500 you charged for that 100 amp is WAY too much. The time you broke down IMO was so far inflated I was stunnned. 1.5 hrs to estimate a 100 amp service? 5(!) hrs for genral admin???
> Now don't get me wrong, if you can charge that, and live with yourself, and get repeat customers, you are a beter business man than me and are doing well for yourself.
> 
> ...




Hey Petey,

Those were real numbers. Included our travel time. We don't rush in and give the customer a price from the hip. We talk to the customer, get a feeling for what they really want.

As for general admin. I personally sat for 4 hours waiting for the inspector and the POCO. Couldn't leave, if I wasn't there when they were there, they were gone. 

I am fine with you not wanting to make money. I am fine with you thinking our prices are high. What I am not fine with is you making assumptions about our actual times.

Not only can I sleep at night charging those prices. I have to charge those prices in order to sleep with a roof over my head. See, the average house price in our area for a resell is about $300,000. You can't get anything livable in a 1 hr radius for under $175,000. 

So, you can be as concientous (sp?) as you want to be. But when you have pay my overhead and payroll, (my residential techs make over $65k/yr, apprentices start out at around $35k) then we can talk. BTW- Gas alone costs us over $6k/month and we're a small company.


----------



## Speedy Petey (Sep 30, 2003)

First off, who said I don't want to make money? You, not me. I do fine for myself.

Also, I do not "rush in and shoot from the hip" as far as giving prices. Still, recon for a 100 amp service change is about a 1/2-3/4 hour thing, MAX. I guess if you count travel to and from you are at 1.5hrs+.

I will admit I have heard bizarre things like having to wait for hours for the POCO to show up. For the life of me I can't understand how a system like that works. That is unfair to everyone except the POCO. I don't get why folks aren't raising hell about it.

Still,I cannot see two guys for 10 hours to do a 100 amp service. I don't care how incompetant they are and how many breaks they take.

The numbers you quoted for homes are the same in my area. I really wish I could charge what you do. Like I said though, I would be pretty bored sitting around waiting for the phone to ring once word got out that I was the highest guy in town, BY FAR.

Sorry, if you spend $6k a month on fuel alone you are NOT a small company IMO. Granted, I don't do a heck of a lot of traveling, but I haven't spent that this year yet. 
That tells me you are either 10 times larger than me or do 10 times the travel.


----------



## Plan 9 (Oct 22, 2006)

What goes into a service change varies greatly around the country. I haven't done a 100 amp in 15 years but generally charge $2500 for a 200 unless it's a 2 story house, then it's around $3000. I'm talking about an overhead service.

Around here we can surface mount or flush mount the panel, we use meter/panel all-in-one units, so this can effect price as well. Los Angeles is actually 88 individual cities and each has permit fees that vary a great deal, plus most require a business license too.

Other local facts: The average house in L.A. is about $400,000 and it takes 90 minutes to drive anywhere, even 10 miles away. In the last year I've raised my rates from $60 to $90 and it hasn't hurt business at all.

I think we all agree on this: As licensed, professional electrical contractors, we bring a lot to the table, I don't believe we charge what we are actually worth. People who entertain children at birthday parties get $125 an hour and plenty of people from wedding photographers to limo drivers charge more than the average electrical contractor.

We could learn a lesson from the plumbers and HVAC guys, we need to scale up our rates and get paid what other professionals get paid.


----------



## mdshunk (Mar 13, 2005)

Speedy Petey said:


> Still,I cannot see two guys for 10 hours to do a 100 amp service. I don't care how incompetant they are and how many breaks they take.


Me and a helper are done with most service upgrades by lunch time. If it's a new build, we're done by 10 o'clock in the morning. 

I don't really have a problem with a guy charging 5 grand for the same service upgrade that I'd do for 2 grand. What I do take issue with is the inflated and exaggerated reasons why this service will cost 5K instead of 2K. If you just want to charge more, fine; so be it. I'm not sure that the 5K service will look, in the end, any different than my 2K service. I might blow up your TV, and that would be the only difference. :jester:


----------



## Speedy Petey (Sep 30, 2003)

mdshunk said:


> I don't really have a problem with a guy charging 5 grand for the same service upgrade that I'd do for 2 grand. What I do take issue with is the inflated and exaggerated reasons why this service will cost 5K instead of 2K. If you just want to charge more, fine; so be it. I'm not sure that the 5K service will look, in the end, any different than my 2K service. I might blow up your TV, and that would be the only difference. :jester:


I guess this is a better way of putting it into perspective.

Only I never blew up a TV. I did crack a $20,000 lucite dining room table once though.  :w00t:


----------



## mahlere (Aug 6, 2006)

Guys,

For the record, when I was in the field doing these every week, I could do a service changeout/upgrade (inside and out) in 6-8 hrs by myself. The 10 hours is for my help. I've argued for quite a while on several boards that the hardest part to growing is when you hire people and the effect on your pricing. 

That 10 hrs is not exaggerated. The leave the shop at 8 am, return at 5:30p. That includes their travel, their lunch, their bagel in the morning, etc. They are not our first mech/helper to take that long, and they won't be our last. 

I wish I could brow beat them to do it faster, but then I would just have to replace them with someone who takes just as long.

It's a sad fact of reality that you will never get rich in this industry without having employees. You'll make a living, but real wealth just isn't there. 

So, by sending my techs in their gay uniforms, booties, mats, yes maam, no maam, we can charge the money we need to, in order to live in the area we live it. 

If I do the service correctly, it will last the homeowners lifetime. When there are people that we service who pay $70,000 in property taxes, why should I cut my throat changing their service. 

For the record, the job we just did is standard pricing. It wasn't any extra because it was an emergency. And for the record, we are not the highest in town, and our phone rings every day. Also, for the other record, there are guys in our area doing 200A upgrades for $1000. 

MD, i have some land and a cabin not to far from you. Property taxes are like $900/yr. There are no licensing requirements. Everyone does construction, plumbing, heating, electrical, etc. It's a different world. Honestly, the fact that you can run more than one truck and get $2k for a service is fairly impressive. But, I can't survive on that here.

But Speedy, you will never make $3000 on a service only because you don't believe that you are worth it. Is a professional ball player worth $10mil/yr? I don't think so. But they do and they get it.


----------



## Plan 9 (Oct 22, 2006)

People often think that it's the market that sets the prices, not the seller, but this only true for commodities. Take wristwatches for example, you can buy a Timex for $15 or a Rolex for $15,000. They both will tell you the time. There is a market for each.

Service changes are not a good businnes to be in, you are competing at the bottom of the food chain with guys who work alone and don't know how to price their work. This artificially depresses prices. But move into highend residential or commercial and those one man shops disappear and so does their dampening effect of prices...


----------



## Woodcrafter74 (Oct 5, 2005)

Guys, thanks for the input here. I'm now quite happy with my $1,260 quote. And this contractor has been in business for 20 years--licensed, insured, etc.

Now can the moderator please close this thread???


----------



## mahlere (Aug 6, 2006)

why close the thread? it's not even remotely hostile. Is it wrong for different ideas to be discussed? 

Let me ask you a quick question woodcraft, why are you more expensive than some other carpenters? It's not rhetorical and i'm actually not trying to stir the pot. But I assume there are carpenters that are cheaper than you. What separates you from them?


----------



## Woodcrafter74 (Oct 5, 2005)

mahlere said:


> Let me ask you a quick question woodcraft, why are you more expensive than some other carpenters?


For me it comes down to quality of work. I understand there's also quality and hackstick work in the electrical field, but I don't believe the difference between my $3500 quote and the $1,260 quote was due to quality.
I have no issue with someone wanting to charge $3,500 for 200amp service or $5,000 or $50,000. We live/work in a competitive market. I started this thread to just get a feel for what I should be paying for this type of service. If anyone has questions about what their new deck is going to cost, I'd be happy to help there.


----------



## mahlere (Aug 6, 2006)

that's the point. I am an electrician, i couldn't tell you just from talking to someone why one guy will charge me $10,000 for the deck, and someone else wants to charge me $15,000 for basically the same deck. You as a deck builder can tell the difference though.


----------



## DaveTap (Nov 8, 2006)

I'm curious why it takes longer for a home owner than an EC to pull permits? As long as you fill out the forms and do load calcs correctly you should have a permit in the same or less time.


----------



## sckeeth (May 11, 2006)

Other local facts: The average house in L.A. is about $400,000 and it takes 90 minutes to drive anywhere, even 10 miles away. 


Actually the median home price is 575,000 dollars.


----------

