What is a fuse panel upgrade?

Question

Please don't say to call an electrician. It's Sunday morning. I am buying a house that needs a fuse panel upgrade to install central air. What is involved in this and what is a ballpark price? Thank you for any serious help

Answer 1

I am an electrician and when I do side jobs my labor for a panel change out is 250 bucks plus the panel and wire upgrade. What you have to expect is a whole change out. If you only have a 60 amp or a 100 amp service now and you upgrade to lets say 200 amp you have to change out your feed wires to be able to handle 200 amps. The peole answering you either forgot to mention that or like most wanna be electricians dont know that. The cost of the panel and wire change out should be around 300 to 500 in parts because you will have to have a new power meter base as well. If I did it 750 tpo 800 bucks on the side, now a contractor you are looking at 1,000 to 1,800 possible more as you will need to pull a permit to do this.

Answer 2

Who says, it sounds to me like someone's having you on.

To run central air (say 6 kilowatts of power) needs a 240 volt power supply of about 25 Amps, where your existing supply to outlets (if in North America) is 120V. But if you already have an electric stove, water heater, clothes dryer etc you'll already have a 240 Volt supply. Check that.

The more important question is to ask your electricity utility if the supply to the house has enough extra capacity for the A/C, if yes then to add a new circuit to feed the A/C is not expensive, the A/C installer should do that for you. If you need to upgrade the mains supply to the house the utility probably has a fixed fee for that.

I can't see why you'd have to upgrade the whole fuse panel to add an A/C provided the mains power supply can handle it, unless the existing fuse panel is so ancient as to be a fire hazard, in which case you might need to upgrade it anyway, and possibly the whole house wiring too.

Better not rush in to buying on a Sunday until you talk to an electrician who knows the standard of wiring in your area, it'll cost a little but could save you $$$ .

Answer 3

Well, messing with electricity isnt for a novice - you'd be dealing with a minimum of 220- 240 volts here - thats more then enough to kill someone ( a lawnmower puts out 12 volts and you get shocked).
An upgrade either means a whole new service panel ( if the existing one is old and full) - older type fuses are either screw in or a round cylendrical type - new ones are of a modular type circut breaker that can hold more power and are easy to reset.
Id say for the new panel ( box that holds all the circut breakers) - around $200 or up
Circut breakers - $20-60 a piece or higher
Wiring for a/c - depending on location of panel from a/c unit - $50 and up
Hardware - ( connectors, ect ) $50
Labor - $11- and up per hour ( panel upgrade would maybe take a few hours- to remove old one, install and hook up new one )
So roughly id say in the $500 area ( more or less) - the a/c unit runs in the few thousand range , just for the unit. Installation /materials is more.
For the whole thing- electrical and a/c - probably in the $10,000 or more range- depending on brand of handler/labor rates- ect

Answer 4

Upgrade can only mean that either the current panel has no breaker positions left or that the current panel is otherwise inadequate (due to age, damage, etc). I'm thinking it's the former; that the current panel has X breaker locations and you need one more (actually two since it's 220).

Cost? The panel itself isn't that much; I bought them by the hundreds for about $25.00 each at wholesale. Full retail shouldn't be more than $40-50. If a different brand is used the breakers will need to be replaced and that can get pricey - the wholesale price was about $3.70 each. What's going to hurt is labor - most electricians charge out at $75 and hour. How much this will cost depends on the current panel, how it's installed and how much of a pain it's going to be to get it out. A competent electrician should be able to do it in no more than three hours max.

Answer 5

It may mean that the existing service can't
carry the extra load imposed by the new
air conditioner.
This would mean:
A new service drop from the utility.
A new Panel with larger mains and extra breakers.
Reconnecting the old circuits to the new panel or
connecting the old panel to a branch of the new
service.
Sorry, but it's likely to be costly.

Answer 6

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