Service & Panel Upgrades · Kitchener

Service and Panel Upgrades in Kitchener

In Kitchener a panel upgrade is usually one of three different jobs wearing the same name, and the load calculation is what tells them apart. Paying for the big one when the small one would do is the most common mistake in this trade.

Three situations bring Kitchener homeowners to this page. An insurer or home inspector has written the words fuse panel or sixty amps on a report about a house near Victoria Park or up Cedar Hill. A 1970s panel in Forest Heights or Stanley Park has no spaces left and the owner wants a hot tub, a finished basement or a charger. Or the house is about to become two or three units under Kitchener's additional dwelling unit rules and nobody is sure the service can feed a second kitchen. These are priced and built differently, and the first visit sorts out which one you have.

What the contractor checks before writing anything down

• The service entrance. Overhead drop or underground lateral, the mast and its flashing, the meter base (which Enova says is the owner's equipment, not theirs), and the condition of the conductors where they enter the house.
• The panel. Fuses or breakers, make and age, how many circuits, how many breakers are doubled up, and whether anything shows heat discolouration.
• Grounding and bonding. Old Kitchener houses were commonly grounded to a metal water service that has since been replaced with plastic at the street or inside. That ground has to be re-established at the panel.
• The load calculation. The code method for deciding how many amps the house as it will be — with the suite, the charger, the heat pump — actually needs. The result is written on the quote so you can see why 100 or 200 is the answer.
• What hangs off the panel. Live knob-and-tube or aluminum branch circuits change the scope, because the panel end of those circuits is dealt with at the same time.

Sixty-amp fuse services in the old core

The brick houses from Kitchener's Berlin years were built with a 60-amp service, and a surprising number still have one, sometimes hidden behind a newer breaker sub-box someone added in the 1980s. Fuses themselves are not the hazard; thirty years of 30-amp fuses screwed into 15-amp circuits to stop them blowing is. A 60-amp service also cannot run an electric range, a dryer and central air at the same time, which is why these houses trip the main on summer evenings. The usual job is a complete new 200-amp service: new mast or lateral, new meter base, new panel, grounding brought up to current requirements, Enova disconnecting and reconnecting, and ESA reviewing before the power is restored. On a house in one of the heritage districts, the position of a new mast or meter base on a visible elevation is checked with the City of Kitchener heritage staff before anything is ordered.

Full 100-amp panels in Forest Heights, Stanley Park and Country Hills

The 1960s-to-1980s subdivisions were built with 100-amp breaker panels that were plenty for the house as sold and are now full. Often the honest fix is a subpanel, fed from a two-pole breaker in the main, mounted where the new load is: the garage for a charger and a workshop, the basement for a finished space. A few panel brands from that era have a reputation with inspectors and insurers for breakers that stick, and where the house has one you will be told so and offered a same-amperage panel replacement, which is a simpler job than a service upgrade because the utility side does not change. Where the earlier houses in these neighbourhoods have aluminum branch wiring, the panel work is the right moment to re-terminate every circuit at the breaker end with the correct connectors.

Enova Power and ESA on the day

Any service change needs Enova Power to disconnect and reconnect, and Enova states it will not reconnect a service that required an ESA inspection until the Electrical Safety Authority has authorized it. The contractor files the ESA notification, books Enova, and schedules the day so the house is not left without power overnight. Expect most of a working day off for a full service upgrade and a few hours for a same-amperage panel swap. Enova notes that the first temporary disconnect in a calendar year carries no charge; anything the utility does charge is shown on the quote as a pass-through, not folded into the price.

Frequently asked questions

Serving Kitchener and surrounding areas. Contact us for a no-obligation quote specific to your property.