Hi everyone. Derek here again.

You know, we receive a lot of calls from customers in Newton, Wellesley and the greater Boston area for electrical service upgrades to either their home or business. Often the customer is unsure of what size upgrade that would be the best fit for their home or business. Usually the situation with each customer is significantly different. It could be that the customer has an old/outdated electrical panel which would need to be replaced with a new larger panel to accept additional circuits.

Homes or businesses that are upgrading or installing new equipment, such as new Air Conditioning units, would typically require additional loads that would necessitate an electrical service upgrade. Service upgrades increases are typically 60 A to 100 A, 100 A to 200 A for homes and for businesses they are typically 200 Amp to 400 Amp, 400 Amp to 600 Amp, and 600 Amp up to 10,000 Amp.

Homes that need a service upgrade typically require replacing all the service equipment such as:

• service drop conduit or cable
• meter box
• service entrance conduit or cable from the meter box to the electrical panel
• the service panel
• the grounding cable from either meter box or electrical panel to the Water main

It is very important for all service upgrade customers to consider their current electrical loads and estimate added/future electrical loads so they can choose the right size service upgrade. An analogy that I often use when speaking to customers for the first time regarding a possible service upgrade is that they should think of their electrical service as if it was the foundation of the home. They would not want to build a large house on an inadequately sized foundation and they would not want a large load on inadequately sized electrical service.