Electrical GremlingZ...

...is something we have not had many of. When we bought the house I went through the entire electrical system to make sure it was at least properly "connected" (poor connections easily overheat and is a real fire danger). That said, even though it was safe, it was time for an upgrade.

A few years ago I did install a new sub panel, to take care of newly installed circuits in and around the garage. That panel has served us well since we've added circuits and protection along the way. But the feed to the panel has been severely underdimensioned (still safely protected though).

In order for doing the properly, we really needed to replace the service entrance (SE) panel as well. But, I had no intentions on working around a hot meter panel. Pugest Sound Energy wanted over $300 to disconnect me at the transformer, with no guarantee of a re-connect time. Time to find a good electrician!

Thanks to a neighbor (Scott) we did find not a good one, but a great one!. He did the heavy lifting (working on the hot meter panel and connecting beefy 250 kcmil wires to the new panel) and leaving me to do everything else. Perfect. It cost me less to have Mike Morgan to all this, than just to have PSE disconnect me out in the street.

Mike also brought in 90 feet of #4/3+1 so I finally could get a good feed to our sub panel. Should have done this years ago, when he cable was only about a $1/foot, now it is closer to $4/foot. Copper prices have risen sharply in the past year...

Looking at the big (and heavy) spool... Well, I'll do this some other time. Not really up for this one right now. We did put the spool in the garage and left the sub panel on its existing 30A circuit, to be forgotten for now.

This being an older house, one could not be sure that the wall studs were sitting on 16" cc. and of course they were not so a bit of chiselign was needed for the new panel to fit. Also decided to remove the old meter box (hidden inside the wall behind new meter panel). This turned out to be the toughest job of the day, since we did not want to remove the siding, but just cut through this box and "pull it out of the way". These boxes are however designed for protection, and it was a long fight until we finally had it out. I patched up the wall and covered the exposed area with a moisture barrier and a layer of primer.

From here on, it was pretty stright forward. Mike installed a huge elbow and routed new wiring into the new panel. Man, as I glad I did not try to do this part on my own.

By the time Mike left, I was terminating the old circuits into the new SE panel, adding pig tails in cases they were not long enough. Yurgen (neighbor) came over and held the light for a while and also when I placed the meter back in location. Always good to chat for a while in good company!

The only drawback of this, is that I totally forgot about the Steinklinkers meeting this same evening. I had picked the micro brewery (Big Time Brewery in the U district), but had to concede and call in "can't come, need to finish the wiring, else wife will be VERY grouchy".

About 8.30PM that evening, meter was back in its place, house was powered up and all was "just like before". Funny, these small upgrades, so badly needed, but once done, you really do not know they are even there or remember all the hard work.