any electrician out there?

[metspitzer]

Good answer!

[Rick-Meister]

You do NOT have to rewire the entire house to do a service upgrade. You will need a new panel, riser conduit and a new weather head, along with heavier gauge cable.

You may however have to do SOME upgrades in the house to meet current code. That may mean a GFCI in bathrooms, kitchen, and garage, etc.

If I understand you right, the outside disconnect panel contains the main breaker and the A/C breaker and then uses an inside subfeed box for the rest of the house. If that's what you're saying, and the subfeed box is up to code, your electrician can do a switch out to 100 amp.

Personally, I'd pay the difference to upgrade the outside disconnect to either 150 or 200amp. You're talking about the difference in price of the panel, larger diameter conduit up to the service drop, heavier gauge aluminum wire, new meter box, and a new weather head. Materials wise, you're talking about $150. Labor wise, the additional labor to run new conduit will probably be about 2 hours. The utility will have to upgrade the service drop.

In either case, whether you replace the box or upgrade the service, I'm sure this job will require a permit. If the inspector says the current wire is ok for 90 amp, then it is.

Whatever the inspector says code is, that's what code is! That's the first thing you learn in contractor school.

[dpb]

[e-mail] wrote: ...

I don't know any electricians who can tell the condition of a breaker or determine the cause of a regularly tripping one simply by looking (other than the obvious it's fried which one would presume isn't the case here since it apparently was still functional to the point of tripping).

"Professional" isn't "omnipotent".

--

[Harry L]

Actually it is, but don't worry the earth is falling too :-)

A clamp ammeter can be a useful thing sometimes.

[Phisherman]

Probably. To be absolutely sure ask another locally licensed electrician and upgrade to whatever is needed. It is also a good idea for one electrician to inspect another electrician's work, nobody's perfect.

[HeyBub]

Sorry. I'm disabled and can't write.

There was an unfortunate encounter involving a 220-volt outlet, a plumber's helper, and a jar of mayonnaise some years back...

[RBM]

You can plug an awful lot of things into a 100 amp service, and no, it's not limited to 70 -80% of capacity

[RBM]

From what I read, Michelle questioned if it was safe and legal to replace a defective 90 amp main breaker with a 100 amp main breaker, as was recommended by the electrician she hired. I don't see the ambiguity

[SteveB]

Yeah, man. Just rip out that old 90 amp panel and put a 200 in there. That should hold it. What's the worst that could happen? Why is everyone being so paranoid?

Steve

[SteveB]

Sorry, just responding to what Michelle wrote, which were just shreds in the first place.

And yes, there are lots of 100 amp services out there just chugging along. But we weren't talking about upgrading them to higher numbers, were we? And there are even limits to how many things can be plugged into a 100 amp service. But then, that 100 amp rating is limited to 70-80% of capacity from the get go.

But you knew all that, right?

Steve

[SteveB]

So, other than the larger panel, larger feed wires, larger wires in some of the circuits, adapting some circuits to GFCI, adding receptacles, and rerouting switches and a hundred other things, it's no big deal?

Steve

[HeyBub]

What!

We're talking $30 for a breaker ($75 labor) vs. $1200-$1500 to upgrade to

200-Amp service.

[SteveB]

Correct. Just keep plugging things in until it goes dark or lights up the whole neighborhood.

Michelle has written in with a question that is similar to: "What's the weather like"?

Well, I don't know, Michelle. I don't live where you are. Why are you asking here for something that you should be consulting a local professional for?

I have these sores around my ..... well ...... you know ............. Yesterday, my fingers started falling off. I'm down to eyesight in one eye.

What should I do?

Doesn't make a lot of sense for someone to be writing in here in vague terms asking about things they really need to find out themselves where they live.

But it does make for fun conversation.

Steve

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Replacing with another 90 amp one will not solve the problem. Usually a/c draws 20 amp, 220V. Moving to 100 amp breaker may solve the problem if the over load situation with the a/c is less than 10 amp.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, As simple as loose connection(over time and age) can cause breaker over hat and tripping. If electricial does the job and some bad thing happens then he is liable.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, It's called balancing the load on Edison circuit.

[lp13-30]

FWIW-- my parent's house had 50 amp service until 1995. It had a little Square D box under the meter with 2 single pole 50 amp breakers that fed the house panel in the garage. We never had any problems, even when we got up to 5 window a/c's -- a 230v 1.5ton later replaced with a 2 ton in the living room, the rest 115v 7-10k btu more or less. Granted, the stove and WH are gas. The only thing was that we could not run the LR a/c and the electric dryer at the same time, but that was because they were double lugged into the same breaker (was that way when we bought the house in 1961 --- built in 1957) . In 1995, I put in central air and installed a GE 100 amp panel outside. The little Square D box was in such perfect shape that I put a 2 pole breaker in it and installed it for a disconnect at the a/c condensing unit, where it still is to this day. Larry

[Red Green]

"SteveB" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Within the 100 year bell curve.

Well, if you haven't been running around on your wife then I suggest you start by shooting her. BTW, free medical in the pokey.

[HerHusband]

My in-laws had a similar problem.

I installed a new 200 amp panel, and converted the old panel into a subpanel. I moved the heavy appliances (stove, water heater, electric heat, AC, etc.) to new breakers in the new panel, and slowly replaced the rest of the wiring as time and money allowed.

If you take your major appliances off the old panel, you should be able to downsize to a 60 or 80 amp breaker for the lights and things until you can get things rewired into the new panel.

Good luck,

Anthony

[Claude Hopper]

100 amp breaker would be fine as it probably feeds the AC breaker too. If it still trips after that you need to upgrade to 200 amps.