A few questions (electric service and changing a circuit)
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A few questions (electric service and changing a circuit)
We are in the process of buying a house in Ocean County, NJ, and I have a few electrical questions.
How much should I expect to pay to increase the electrical service in the house from 100A to 200A?
The inspector advised that we move the dishwasher from the kitchens circuit which has GFCI's, to a dedicated circuit without GFCI's. What are the reasons for doing this? So that other appliances don't trip the GCFI?
Thanks in advance for the help!
How much should I expect to pay to increase the electrical service in the house from 100A to 200A?
The inspector advised that we move the dishwasher from the kitchens circuit which has GFCI's, to a dedicated circuit without GFCI's. What are the reasons for doing this? So that other appliances don't trip the GCFI?
Thanks in advance for the help!
#2
Why do you want a 200 amp service? In most cases, depending on the size of the home, 100 amps is plenty big. That is unless you main heat source is electric. To answer your question, it is kind of hard to say. Labor rates vary greatly but a ballpark guess would be $1500-$2500
The dishwasher, if it is not a portable one, is required to have its own circuit and not shared on the kitchen small appliance circuit. There is no reason to GFCI a dishwasher.
The dishwasher, if it is not a portable one, is required to have its own circuit and not shared on the kitchen small appliance circuit. There is no reason to GFCI a dishwasher.
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Thanks for the quick reply.
The current 100A service is full from the original home, plus an addition. We plan on adding central air somewhere down the road and were told that in order to do that we would need to upgrade the service to 200A.
The current 100A service is full from the original home, plus an addition. We plan on adding central air somewhere down the road and were told that in order to do that we would need to upgrade the service to 200A.
#4
It sounds like you might have good reason for the upgrade. Still I'd recommend a demand load calculation before you go to the expense. A subpanel can be added to make more room for additional circuits for about half the cost of a service upgrade, provided you don't actually need the extra amps.
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Thank you both very much.
We will get a load calculation before we have any work done and hopefully can just go with a sub panel. We are not sure what size A/C unit we would get, but if its a 2 ton (to cool a 1800 sq. ft. house) how many amps would it require?
Thanks again for the helpful insight.
Ed
We will get a load calculation before we have any work done and hopefully can just go with a sub panel. We are not sure what size A/C unit we would get, but if its a 2 ton (to cool a 1800 sq. ft. house) how many amps would it require?
Thanks again for the helpful insight.
Ed
#7
A 2T air conditioner would be generally under 20A, maybe even like 10A if you go with a high-efficiency unit. I believe the HVAC contractor does a "manual J" calculation to determine the size of the a/c unit, or you can do a quick estimate like this one: Selecting Air Conditioner Size