Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Electrician Input?

i am a licensed electrician in several states and although i cant speak for your area but to me that seems high.i just did a service change out,new panel,meter base and disconnect and new riser for $1500.now that was a family discount and i used top of the line equipment.

I'm a retired electician, and I think the quote was about double what it should be. Looks like he was trying to make his week's worth of profit on a half-day's job.

I will take a wild guess it was a company with a full page yellow page ad and "up front pricing". The ones around here charge $2-250 an hour in their up front pricing.

Keep shopping and you will find much better pricing.

That is a 1500 dollar job all day long around here.

I'm all for do it yourself,But not on a service change out.as mentioned eat the $400.00,and get a couple more estimates.Its twice to three times what it should be.

Also some contractors prices increase dramatically when you are in desperate shape,usually they will jump right on it and not give you time to get other quotes.

Most areas here, the meter socket/can is always FREE. That way you get the right one for the companies meters...

I'm with a city, and we never charge to disconnect, reconnect or upgrade our service drops to your weatherhead/meter socket.

In fact we still charge only 4.75 a foot for underground installed... to get from us to your socket...

As others have noted though, areas vary in price/cost.

Unless your mast is really tall, I bought everything you need to replace yours, breakers included AND a 225 amp manual double pole double throw switch for generator usage for just at the 1000.00 mark. Appx 12 foot riser height.

Took me an evening to build the loop in the carport, nothign more than assembling parts..

Rural electric came out that morning and dropped the door, I replaced the service and doing it almost all by myself, they were back around 3 or 4 IIRC, and I was done and they heated the service back up again.

Took me maybe 10-12 hours max of my time basically.

Just as an FYI

I'd get some more bids for sure, then you have a much better idea of where you stand.

Generally speaking what I hear around here rurally, your job is appx 1200-1500 bucks on average.

Update: after all the input from the fire I contacted another electrician and the ended up at around 2K for the same job that was originally quoted at 4600 gross 4200 net.

I would like to thank you all for you input without it I am sure I would have just sucked it up and paid the price.

Anyone of you in the area the beers are on me!!!

2K is no picnic but is light years ahead of 4K

Thanks again!!!

thats great,glad you were able to get the cost down closer to where i thought it should have been.

Thanks Fat Daddy this is one of the reasons I enjoy the fire. For ever bit of drama that is posted when someone is in need the folks here step up with advice and knowledge. Like I said if your ever in the Tampa area the beer is on me.

good deal,2k is better in your pocket than paying for someones country club membership.

my stay here has been a rocky one and trying at times but there seems to be a good bunch of folks here.i posted because it burns me up that people in my trade try to take advantage of descent people.times are tough for all of us but that dosent give us the right to gouge and take advantage of people in need of our services.i travel from coast to coast pretty regular and i appreciate the beer.i may take you up on it one day

I need to change-upgrade my service from 200amp to 400amp

However, I really don't want codes dept sniffing around my compounderr, home.

Last permit I pulled was about 2200 square ft ago


I did perform a backfeed from my detached garage via underground run. That is on another transformer and 100amp service. I siphoned off about 60amps for additions here at the house 200ft away. LOL