LESLIE: Alice in Maryland is on the line with a question about electrical service replacement. What’s going on at your money pit?
ALICE: We are trying to determine whether it would be worthwhile to replace our service. Our house was built in 1976. We currently have 150-amp service underground. An electrician recommended that we upgrade to 200-amp service. And it’s a pretty big expense, so we were wondering if that’s a worthwhile choice.
LESLIE: Are you doing any sort of renovation that requires more power? Are you adding in central air, upgrading appliances? Is there a change happening that requires the power of an electrical service replacement?
ALICE: We’ve done a lot of upgrading here in the past and this is just something that recently was recommended to us when we had just a ceiling fan installed by the electrician.
TOM: I have to say, Alice, that I think what your electrician is recommending you do is fund, perhaps, his next vacation or college-tuition payment. Because I don’t think an electrical service replacement going from 150 to 200 makes much difference.
You have a – is this a gas-fired house? You have natural gas?
ALICE: We have no gas in the area.
TOM: So this is all electric?
ALICE: Yes.
TOM: How are you heating your house? Is it a heat pump?
ALICE: We have a heat pump, yes.
TOM: And you have one zone or two? How many heat pumps do you have?
ALICE: One zone.
TOM: I’ve got to tell you, I think you probably have enough and do not need an electrical service replacement. Unless you can prove to me that he’s …
LESLIE: It sounds like there’s – it’s sufficient.
TOM: Yeah, unless you can prove to me that you’re really using more than 150 amps, I seriously doubt you need 200. That’s a lot of power, even for an all-electric house.
ALICE: Interesting.
LESLIE: We had to upgrade to a 200-amperage service because we put in central air conditioning. We were only on 100 and that was that.
TOM: Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And even 100, I’ve – I was an inspector for 20 years. I used to put a tool called an “amp probe” on those main cables when everything was running in the house. We’re talking about electric ovens, refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners. And it would be a 150-amp service pulling 50, 60 amps with everything on. So, you’d be surprised how much you can pull through that.
ALICE: OK.
TOM: I think you ought to get a second opinion.
ALICE: We were skeptical, so thought it was a …
TOM: Didn’t feel right.
ALICE: Definitely wanted to check into it before making that major expense.
TOM: Yeah. Yep. Yep, exactly. Well, thanks for calling. I’m glad we helped you out on this.
ALICE: Thank you. You’re a great resource. I really appreciate it.
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