Service replacement cost

[Rich B]

My electric service cable was severed probably by a truck. I came home from work to find this and no one reported it or stopped. The pole is across the street... a 2 lane road and the wires were laying in the street and still live from the transformer on the pole down to the broken cables in the road....

I called the police....and a local electrical business that I picked mostly by name and advertising locally.

They sent a tech within an hour or two.....he took a look.

The power company showed up about the same time....

They went ahead and butt spliced the ripped cable and had me back on line in a few hours at most...

My service is a 200 amp that feeds two meters as it is a 2 family home

The service and meter pans were 32 years old and I was thinking this was a good opportunity to replace that equipment. I had a probelm at one meter connection not long ago and was lucky to avoid a major problem then thanks to a friend who repaired it....he was a union electrician and jobsite foreman.

I was given some prices for various materials to replace the servcie. I chose plastic conduit with aluminum cables. New dual meter panel. All new and up to code ground rods and connections to the water piping system. No new panels or breakers.......One man did the job in one day....I stopped by and helped him as he was struggling to get the wires fed up thru the conduit. The new stuff had to jog offset a few feet to allow the head to rise higher than the cable anchor and form a proper drip leg area.......I was happy with the work but felt the price was rediculously high at $3800

I felt pressed to do it when I signed the agreement. The power was still down and I did not think the power company would do what they did.

I was hoping my homeowners insurance would help and it appears they will.....


BUT $3800 !!!! for a Service mast in PVC with 200 amp aluminuum cabling and it's maybe 20 feet......1 dual meter pan and 2 ground rods with proper connections and clamps to meet code....

A Permit was listed on the bill for $150 .....I decided not to pay in full untill I had a copy of the Permit application and inspection was completed and the service install was approved an stickered....No doubt this will happen as this is a well known local electricial company.....and the work looks fine.....

I feel this price was more than a little bit high and they took advantage of someone that felt they were in a bind.........but really was not as it turned out......I could have simply re anchored the original SE cable.....

I will never call them again and the company I work for is one they MIGHT need one day as we are in a field directly related.......

Opinions ????