I mentioned last week that we dug up the yard, again. This time, it involved our electrical service. When we bought the house, we knew the electrical need updating. Starting at the power company’s transformer all the way through to almost every outlet in the house, the electrical was outdated. After we had a nearby lightning strike late in 2013 that blackened several old-style spin in fuses, the DW and I agreed it was time to make upgrading the electrical a priority and added a new breaker box to our 2014 goals.

The New Breaker Box

The new box went in last year, though not as planned. But, that was only part of what needed to be upgraded. There was still this…

The Main Disconnect

That’s the main disconnect between the power company’s meter and the house. If it looks scary, that’s because it is. It’s also old, and undersized. It’s a 60 amp disconnect… it was installed long before A/C, microwaves, clothes dryers, pumps for deep wells, TVs, etc, etc. To give you an idea of just how undersized, the new disconnect for the house installed by the power company is 200 amps, with two separate disconnects for the outbuildings. (We had become accustomed to not running the dryer while the A/C was running.) The 200 amp disconnect now matches the 200 amp breaker box we installed last year.

The New Pole, Transformer, and Disconnect

The entire upgrade had to carefully orchestrated. First, the power company needed to install the new pole, transformer, and disconnect. Once it was in place, I rounded up my typical crew and we trenched in new wire from the disconnect to the house and shed – hence the mess. Then, the power company, inspector, and electrician needed to show up at the same time to switch the connection from the old to the new.

New Wire Trenched In

Now that the electrical service has been completely upgraded from the transformer to the breaker box, all we need to do is run new wire to the box as we remodel the house room by room. The other great thing is that by trenching in all of the new wire outside, there are no more overhead wires over the driveway and the yard – a nice safety upgrade. This definitely isn’t a glamorous upgrade, but it was needed. Even though we had become accustomed to limiting our energy use so not to pop fuses, it was past time for the upgrade. Why am I so sure – well, when the power company was taking down their old pole and transformer, the old pole was so rotten it splintered and snapped under it’s own weight during the process. Just imagine it trying to hold up a wire coated with ice this winter.