Electrician costs.. | GTAMotorcycle.com

Electrician costs..

jc100

Well-known member
I have to get some work done on the house. I have 2 breakers that keep tripping. A microwave socket that doesn't seem to be on a separate circuit. I have some redundant circuits that used to use baseboard heaters that were removed (a double gang breaker doing nothing currently). So I think the breaker panel needs rejigging a bit. I also have some lights that were wired up a weird way and need sorting out. I don't think I need an upgraded service, it's 100 amp, and I don't think I need any serious rewiring but what does need doing may be in a confined crawlspace that's not easy to get to.

I know it's hard to put a finger on costs but what do electricians charge for this kind of job? Seems to be mainly sorting out the breaker panel to make better use of the 100 amp supply to the house.
 
Sorting old installs is harder than running new. It's time consuming without the "concrete" results. So expect it to cost more than you think. This is where experience comes into play. A new electrician can do the work, but a more experienced one will be better at tracking issues.
 
I hate to sound negative....but, as an electrician, you may be opening a can of worms so to speak. I did a job for a friend recently where I had to remove 2 "knob and tube circuits from the electrical panel". No biggie, turned the circuits off and traced things and turned out to be only 2 small rooms with some lighting. Rewired those two rooms, change the whole panel, turn breakers on, and find out some other rooms not working.

Reason is some hack job electricians tapped off of the "knob and tube" neutral wires to feed other circuits. So in essence you had a neutral helping different circuits than the Hot wire. Also a 14/3 wire feeding a split receptacle in kitchen had issues too. 2 hot wires coming in on the same phase so you would think 2 different circuits on that receptacle but nope. Somewhere in the wall the 2 wires were connected, so you could turn off one breaker and the whole plug was still live...reason is because both circuits were on a Tandem breaker on the same phase so it would never trip. Turned out I had to rewire almost the whole house lol, nightmare job. Also found 4 covered/drywalled junctions in the basement lol. So instead of a one day job it turned into 4 days worth of work. I try to stay away from old residential jobs....too many hacks and home depot/self help electricians out there.

I am assuming from your issue you have too many outlets on one breaker including the microwave, thus tripping the breaker due to overloading.
The only way this may be remedied inside the panel is if, there are 2 wires tied into the same breaker and you have spare room to add another breaker. Then you can take one wire off and trace exactly what it is feeding. Then maybe, you can install that wire on a different breaker.

Word of advice, if someone offers to just install a 20amp breaker on that one circuit to increase the amperage before tripping, then kick them out of your house lol. Most likely you have 14 gauge wire and that's a no no.

You are probably looking at anywhere between 500$ and 2000$ depending on the severity and probably two guys to pull wire, drill holes through the attic. Might also be at least $50/hour not including material. You may also need to make holes everywhere in drywall in order to pull new circuits, so add the cost of patching and painting (which you can probably do yourself).
Also, any new work that will be done will need to be up to electrical code......and it doesn't sound like it is up to code now.
Hope this helps
 
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Nobody worth a damn will show up for less than $500, fwiw.
 
Thanks guys. So when we bought the house years ago we had some renovations done upstairs and had a good electrician come in and did all that to code, stripped out all the old wiring and put new wiring in and sorted it out perfectly. No issues there. The issues are with what wasn't touched downstairs. In the crawlspace that's most accessible I can see all the wiring and it looks reasonably new and not degraded, I just think the circuits have been connected in a very odd way. I figured it might probably cost more than $500, was hoping for less than a grand but that might be wishful thinking. Was just looking for mins and maxes so you've helped there.
 
My guess as a non-electrician follows diesels story. Expect a day at whatever the going hourly rate is for the electrician to trace and fix your problems. If they run into a shitshow of wiring with hidden junctions, don't be surprised if it takes multiple days.
 
Doesn't take an electrician to figure out (mostly) what else is on that microwave circuit. Presumably it is plugged into a receptacle. When it's tripped, what else goes down?
 
Doesn't take an electrician to figure out (mostly) what else is on that microwave circuit. Presumably it is plugged into a receptacle. When it's tripped, what else goes down?

I'd be interested to see what is causing the draw in that circuit as well. My guess would be another kitchen appliance operating at the same time, otherwise, what is on that draws 600+ watts often enough that breaker tripping bothers you?

At my parents house, the certified electrician connected the outside plugs, washing machine and living room on the same circuit during construction. I have no idea what crack he was smoking that made that a good idea. Labelling breakers is a nightmare and even tracking down what is on each circuit takes a lot of time (or a crap ton of lamps so you can see what outlets are on).
 
Doesn't take an electrician to figure out (mostly) what else is on that microwave circuit. Presumably it is plugged into a receptacle. When it's tripped, what else goes down?

He is an Uni Prof...they don't do these types of things...just sayin:cool:
I find it hard to believe that there are guys that do not know how to use screw drivers...but they exist.
 
I've been pondering getting a 240V outlet put in my garage but don't want to open a can of worms for some of the reasons mentioned above.

Electrical work can be a pain
 
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I've been pondering getting a 240V outlet put in my garage but don't want to open a can of worms for some of the reasons mentioned above.

Electrical work can be a pain
Easiest electrical work I've done.
 
It is really not that difficult. Most household stuff is pretty basic. As long as you are good with some basic math and understand how current works/flows. The one thing I would not do by myself is to replace electrical panel etc. ... that to me is kind of a bigger work.
 
...The one thing I would not do by myself is to replace electrical panel etc. ... that to me is kind of a bigger work.
not really. I satellited my panel and replaced one in a shop before.




and a 240v is the same as running a stove or dryer. Measure the run from the panel (at least twice), buy the cable length(plus a bit) and hook everything up. Just be careful of the hole location you drill thru into the garage.
 
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Putting in a 240v outlet into a garage was?

I imagine the difficulty can vary depending on the home/garage setup and wiring.
Yeah I lucked out that my panel is one wall away from the garage... but I also meant that it wasn't a complicated task in itself. Buy the right breaker, pick an empty slot for it, and run some wire. It's not complex.
 

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