I know some of you out there are either electrical contractors or work for one.

Short as I can make it, we have a 25 year old house that has two 200 amp circuit breaker panels installed.

In the last few months, one of the panels kept tripping out the main on one of the boxes (1/2 of the house) and I had to trip one or more switches off and reset the main to get power back. There is an obvious problem with one of the circuits we added over the last few years.

Called a so called expert who came out yesterday afternoon and we discovered that the offending box had been overheating and needed to be replaced. He could not get to it for two weeks and my dear beloved wife took his advice and called Mr. Sparky to have them come out and replace the box last night. Without my permission or involvement. Showed up at 6;00 and finished at 11:00, 5 hours. Told my wife the cost was $2,500.

I blew up as I had been looking at prices for a new box and all new breakers during the day and came up with maybe $900 for parts plus labor. Outside, figure $30 an hour billed, or even $40 per hour so at $40 add $200 plus the $125 emergency call fee. Maybe $1400 tops.

The one guy did not finish last night and came back today with a second worker. When I called the wife at noon, she told me they told her the second box also had to be replaced and she authorized that without my input as she said they offered to do the second box for only $1600.

So today, by my calculations, we have another box and breakers at $900 and two men for 7 hours, at let us say $40 billed or $560 plus a $125 permit fee.
That equals $1600 more or less.

Problem I have is that it took two guys 7 hours to do more or less what the one guy did yesterday in 5 hours.

In any case, they presented a bill for $5,200 an hour or so ago and I told them I was not going to pay any bill until I got a complete line item by line item breakdown of what I was being billed for. Breaker box, X breakers by Y amp rating, labor hours billed per person etc.

Needless to say, the lead electrician was not happy and wanted to have me talk to his manager on the spot. I refused and that pissed off my wife as well as she was embarrased by my "behavior".

Two more things and I have to eat dinner.

In September, my store sign blew down. A really big sign, 34'X5'.
It had to be completely rebuilt, we had 4 visits of the sign truck, a ***** of a truck with a 40' boom, lots of shop time and lots of electrical work. Took a month. Cost...........$5,000

The other thing, the saddest part of all, is that the original problem of the one panel tripping out because of some sort of problem with what is hooked up where is not solved. I am sitting looking at a bill for $5,200 and we are still at square one.

Please my brothers, you electricians, give me a clue as to how to proceed.

Ah, Yes, the new Circuit Breaker Panels are Cuttler Hammer 225 amp as are all the circuit breakers themselves. They trashed all of the existing circuit breakers from the old panels, many of which were almost new and also did not use a box of brand new breakers I had in reserve which were perfectly OK. "We only use Cuttler Hammer" said the lead electrician.

Bill

 

you have 2 200 amp panels?? in your house???

 

$5200 is really high for a service panel installation. Those guys dragged their asses. That said, I have never seen an electrician who works for a mere $40/hr. A bargain rate here in PA for residential electrical work is $65/hr. A big outfit would be over $100/hr.

I'll second that, and throw in a

 

i was gonna say.. code says a minimum 100 amp service for residential. 200 amp is pretty much the standard for todays construction. 2 200 amp panels that doesnt sound right.. what are u running in that place ?? lol. im thinking of upgrading my service and i was quoted 4,000$ and thats putting all 4 meters outide its a 4 unit property and adding a public meter,new service entrance cables etc..good amount of work. finding a quality electrician is just like anything else. ask around for references.

 

Out side of the electrical problem, When she tells you somethings broke, you better not rest until it's fixed. When they get that way, they are mad, and will break you, until you learn to pay attention. No matter how hard that may be
Just a suggestion though

Sorry Bill, I'm laughing with you, and not at you
You have my Sympathy

 

Wish I could help you diagnose, sorry.

I pay less than that to do a new 1800 sq ft house including permit and service. Good call on the line item invoice

 

wow, you got hosed...

We usually charge around 1100 for a 200 amp service including all new service entrance cable to the power company's wires... all we re-use is the wires to each branch circuit.

for 2 200 amp pannels, i'd say 2000... in my area...

we charge 65 an hour FOR HOURLY JOBS... contract jobs are just that... they dont need to show you an hourly figure or anything... we always do service changes on a contract though...

you probably had SIEMENS brakers... they do not fit cuttler hammer.... they also only use thier materials because they need to warranty their work and materials. That said, cuttler hammer is a high quality breaker panel...

they probably took your brakers and will use them on a later job, making more money...

5000 to replace two panels and still not fixing the problem is a lot in the NY area... in Los Angeles it might be right on, where you live has a lot to do with price...

what do you have in your house to need TWO 200 amp pannels!? we run a whole farm on just 1 200 amp....

edit:

to trip a 200 amp main braker... you have HUGE problems.... most likey obvious... a quick check over with an amp meter to see what is drawing so much would be my start... not replacing 2 pannels.... 1 was definitely fine if it wasn't tripping... why fix what isn't broken? The tripping one was probably fine also, ( unless caroded bad or had serious stress to it) they should have checked the circuit that was tripping, not just screwing you out of 5 grand....

thats why you don't call a giant company called Mr sparky.... call a little guy with little overhead for the best price.... call me

 

Tumba first:

I am already sleeping on the couch, without an electric blanket and it is forecast for 12 degrees here this AM.

The rest of you.

House is 2,800 sq ft plus the same amount in the basement. Also a second two car garage and a "pool house" of about 400 sq ft that we converted into an apartment for my Sister in Law which includes a small HVAC unit as well as one of those instant water heaters for her shower and wash basin. In the main house, we run two fairly large HVAC units plus a pump apparatus for a large in ground pool and two Koi ponds with pumps and filters.

Up until recently, this caused no problems with our two 200 amp panels.

So, yes, we did have two 200 amp panels and now we have 2 225 amp panels.

Aside from all of that, I am still looking for a sense of what I should pay for replacing a 200 amp panel, in total, including all the breakers, given that I had the panel already there and it was a matter of replacing the box and moving all the existing wires from the old breakers to the new ones.

Finally, regarding the hourly billed rate in dollars, I have a really good Jewish Lawyer that has saved me many thousands of dollars over the last 17 years and his hourly rate is $200 per hour. Do you seriously say, MuddyTruck, that I have to pay Mr. Sparky $100 per hour for a couple of really duffer electricians??

Bill

 

Bill,

FWIW, I came across this link where people around the country report what it cost them to change panels:

http://www.costhelper.com/cost/home-...l-service.html

Looks like a huge range.

 

nope... in a lot of areas... that is per worker

sounds like enough stuff to make the 400 amps needed... is the insta hot water on the pannel that tripped.... everything on that pannel i am worried about, everything else on the other panel is of no importance... the insta hots take a LOT of juice... when it kicks on it could be too much and pop a main.... depends how much is on that panel really...

 

shorse:

I stand corrected, I should have typed $100 per hour per worker.

Realizing that the electrician gets only a portion of the $100 per hour, the company gets the balance or whatever % they pay the worker, it is still a lot of money to pay when only about 40% of the time they spent was on pure professional work.

The other 60% was spent chatting up my wife about what they had to do, what they were going to do, what they might be able to do etc. Yesterday, the lone electrician spent about 20% of his time on the cellphone explaining to his wife why he would not be home for dinner, sex or whatever.

At this point, I am not a happy camper and may need to involve my $200 an hour lawyer.

Bill

 

I think before I got a lawyer involved. I'd get an apples to apples quote from a reputable company.

That bed ain't balanced with out ya. Just stay on your side!

 

look at the paper work you have... if it says anything about replacing the panel to cure the tripping main breaker, and you paid to have that done and it still does it, should it not be covered under what you paid... make them fix it....

i would call another electrician if they wont fix the problem for free... have him give you a written quote for what you hard mr sparky do... have a few private guys do it too... then call your jewish friend up and make your money back...

 

I'm not saying that you should pay $100/hr for those retards. I'm just saying that's what a lot of the big name outfits do charge. Sorry to hear about your troubles. If my wife called some electrician out of the yellow pages, there would be some serious domestic disturbances around this residence...

 

Shorse and others:

First, let me not be judged about my remark about my Jewish lawyer. No stereotype here, he and I have lots of laughs about his religious background and he revels in being a Jewish lawyer.

Regarding the paperwork from Mr. Sparky, it is a really bad form type of invoice, not unlike what you get from your primary care doctor. It is all code numbers and a hand written $ figure next to the code.

Very sadly, my wife only brought them in to fix the burned up/burning panel problem, not the tripping out problem. The Mr Sparky electrician pointed this out to me in no uncertain terms and I think we have no where to go on that issue.

Shorse, I think you are correct in aiming on my Sister in Law's instant water heater and I have to confess that at the same time we set that up (also her little HVAC unit) we also installed the Hot Tub, probably, on the same circuit.

So, I guess my original question sort of still stands.

Replace one or more existing 200 amp service panels that exist, do not have to be installed from scratch, and are easily accessible from both the panel itself and the feed from the local Electric company ( in this case all the boxes are within 4' of the feed from the local Utility Box). How much??????
Bill