Is It Time to Change Your Red Deer Electrical Panel?
Hey there everybody. Welcome back to LumenTek Electrical’s YouTube channel. I’m here with Ryan. He is the owner and operator of LumenTek Electrical. And today he wanted to share some information about what to expect when you’re going to get a panel upgrade or an electrical service upgrade. So what should people expect? What is the first step, Ryan?
The first step is reaching out to us and contacting us about panel upgrades. Very good. Give us a call and make sure that we were going to come out and see you. What’s next? Then we show up and we take some measurements.
Well, first of all, we will see if you even need a panel upgrade. We’ve had a few people call before thinking they need one because someone tried to upsell them. All right. For no reason. And if they don’t need a panel upgrade, there’s no point changing the panel. That’s right. First of all, we determine if you even need a panel upgrade.
What Happens During a Panel Upgrade Assessment in Red Deer
Once that’s done, we will take some photos, take some measurements of what you have. A lot of the time the older panels are smaller, so we measure to make sure you actually have room for a new panel or if we have to move the panel to a new location, we figure a plan out for that. A lot of the times older panels were a lot more lenient on where you could put them.
Okay, now you need certain space requirements around the panel. Yeah, you can’t have it in a stairwell. You can’t have it in stair closets, bathrooms, kitchens are allowed as long as they’re still accessible and they’re not right by a sink or anything like that. But yeah, there’s a lot more rules now about where they can put a panel. So, we make sure all those boxes are checked so that we can put it in the same location or if not, we come up with a plan on where we can’t put it.
We count up all the circuits. A lot of the time older panels, especially if they need a panel upgrade, they’ve doubled circuits up and they’ve changed stuff like that. So, we have to determine how many circuits the new panel needs. How many breakers, what type of breakers, all that. And then we come up with a quote.
We have to then coordinate it most of the time with the utility company, get the power shut off, and we can pull the panel out. If we need to change the cable between the panel and the meter, we do it at that time. Put the new panel in, relabel everything, reinstall the circuits, and get the power reconnected, test everything, and clean up. And yeah.
Timeline and Disruptions During Electrical Panel Replacement
So, that’s the whole picture. From beginning to end. Now, maybe slow down a little bit for people who are wanting to get this done. Step one, you contact you and then you come in and make sure you need a panel. And then after that, what kind of disruption is it going to be? How many days or weeks does it take? How long is the disconnect and reconnect? What is your process?
The trickiest part for us at least is coordinating the disconnect and reconnect. Usually that takes about a week with Foris or Red Dear Light and Power. Once that’s coordinated, then we can come in and change your panel. It takes about a day to get the panel out, replaced, connected, tested, all that. So, we’re usually at the house for 6 to 10 hours, depending on how big the panel is, how big of a change it is. If it’s just simply pulling it out, put a new one in. It’s a little faster.
Now, do you have to put in a new mast and a meter socket and all that stuff? Sometimes it really depends. It’s a kind of a case by case thing. Some houses need a new set like a whole new service from the street back to the panel. A lot of the time, like the majority of ones we see, it’s just the panel’s too small or there’s something wrong with it. If it’s the main breaker tripping all the time and they’ve been discontinued, you can’t find one or it’s an old Federal Pioneer and they don’t want to have issues with it, then we change out just the panel.
But yeah, sometimes if it’s a 60 amp service or if the overhead service is too low and I want to put a deck in there or something and the cable will be at head height for everybody, then we’ll usually put a new mast in and change all that out.
What Homeowners Should Expect During the Process
Now, what should the homeowner be prepared for? Do they have to leave their house or is it better? I guess it’s different in the summer or in the winter. So maybe walk us through some of those decisions.
It’s not too bad. It’s power is obviously off. So there’s no internet, anything like that. A lot of the time we’ll bring a generator with us. So if you need to continue working or whatever when we’re working, then we can run extension cords so you can get your internet going and your computer and furnace if it’s cold out. But yeah, other than that it’s not too bad. Just no power.
Now, when you’re moving a panel, most of the circuits are already tied into where that panel is. How much work goes into putting the junction box and doing extensions and all of that in order to get to the newer location?
It really depends on how far that location is from the original location. A lot of the time we’re able to either go on the other side of the wall or move it over 3 ft or so, and that usually gets us in an area that’s acceptable by code for a new panel. And then again it depends on how many circuits you have and the condition of everything else in there. But a lot of the time that’s almost easier because we can get all the new stuff in and then it’s just disconnected. We just change the cable from the meter, get them to reconnect it again. So they only have power out for an hour or two.
Common Reasons for Electrical Panel Upgrades
Okay. Now, what are some of the main reasons for getting a panel change?
A lot of the time people want to add circuits and say their house is older and they only have a 16 circuit panel, they want to finish their basement or put a basement suite in. We’ve been seeing a lot of that lately. Your current electrical code requires so many more circuits than they anticipated before. So, there’s just no room in the old panels. We have to change them, right? that or it’s been a discontinued panel or something like a stab lock panel has a history of catching fire and not tripping. So then people just want to get rid of it. Yeah. Fire hazard.
Okay. So if people want to get a panel upgrade, do a remodel renovation and they just need more circuits because 16 circuits is not going to do it for a house today. No. Like typically when you’re doing a new build what size panels are you putting in those?
It’d be a 32 circuit minimum. So, that’s 32 circuits or 64 if you buy tandem breakers. Yeah. So, you can have 64 circuits. So, 16 64 and then they get bigger from there, don’t they? Yes. Much bigger. You can get much bigger ones.
Okay, cool. Is there anything else that people should know if they’re calling you for a panel change out or service upgrade?
Not really. We can kind of as long as know their address and what they want done. The biggest thing too is if they can tell us if they plan on adding anything in the future cuz it sucks when we do a panel upgrade for someone, they call us back for something else. It would have been nice to know had they wanted to put a welding shop in the backyard that we had talked about upgrading to a 200 amp service at the same time or The more we know, the better we can help you. If we don’t know what you’re going to be doing in the future, then we can’t help you the best we can.
Yeah. And you recently did a panel change out in your new house that you just got because the panel was old and you wanted to do some upgrades. So, what was that like for you?
It was good. It was nice because I had all the time in the world to prepare for it. We had an old stab block panel. After changing the panel out, we really realized how bad those stab lock panels are. We tripped so many breakers because a lot of the electrical work previous to us buying it wasn’t done right. So our entire basement is on one circuit, which we never thought about because it never tripped. And now it trips all the time. We have to figure a plan out to get power to the other side of a finished basement.
Wow. Okay. So they didn’t think of having more than one circuit for the basement. Yeah. Excellent. Well, probably when it was first built, it had one light, right? Yeah, I think I finished the basement after it was built. And then they just went off that one light and just went everywhere. I thought, “Oh, I think the wire goes there, so it must be good.” Yeah, pretty much. Great. Okay, so lots of fun.
What else? It was relatively easy. We were lucky that our panels were in the mechanical room, so we had all the room we needed. There wasn’t really much in the way of that. The kids are at daycare, so no internet, no TVs wasn’t a problem. All right, perfect. Yeah, the weather was cooperating, so changing out the service wasn’t too bad.
Great. So, it wasn’t – 35 outside and No, it was nice. The snow was melting. Good. Good. Yeah. Great. Well, it’s good that, you know, you were able to change out your panel. We’re going to be showing some footage in this video somewhere of you actually doing that, so that’ll be fun and interesting for people.
Hey guys, if you’re looking for a panel upgrade, no better place to call than LumenTek Electrical out in Blackfalds, Alberta and the Red Deer area. So, if you’re in Sylvan Lake, you’re in Lacombe, Red Deer, Blackfalds, all those places in between, they’re the people to call to come out and get that done for you. Right, so that’s it for me. If you like this video, like, subscribe, share with a friend, and we’ll see you on the next one. Thanks.
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