Hi,
I've got underground powerlines and the PG&E vault box is across the street on my neighbors property. PG&E said if I wanted to upgrade my existing 100A electrical panel to 200A, I'd have to trench from my electrical box to the vault box across the street and replace the lines in addition to the replacing the conduit to 3" wide conduits.
Based on my conversations with PG&E, it sounds like I need to pay for the entire cost but should PG&E be responsible for paying for the trenching on the public street? I understand I'd have to pay for the trenching on my property (and I'm assuming my neighbors property) but I wasn't sure about the street.
Thanks for your input.
I would imagine since it's elective you would be responsible for paying for the entirety of the work, but I'm not certain. Will you share what PG&E is quoting you for the cost of the work? I have something similar I need to get done soon.
I would imagine since it's elective you would be responsible for paying for the entirety of the work, but I'm not certain. Will you share what PG&E is quoting you for the cost of the work? I have something similar I need to get done soon.
You're the one initiating the action so generally the utility will require you bear the full cost including any required permitting or trenching. Some utilities will perform all of the work and provide you a bill, while others will only pull in the wire and require you to obtain your own permits and contractor to trench and install the conduit. Generally the only time the utility will do the work 'for free' is when their is sufficient new load being added...it is a math problem for them of how much value the new service adds vs. the cost to install. So if there is a sufficient return then they can complete the work without charging the customer.
You're responsible.
we recently had to horizontal bore under a highway and pull 4" conduit for 3 phase primary.
Sometimes they will have contractors that can do the work and bil you but be aware they may charge you for two conduits for future growth and as a backup.
Hi,
I've got underground powerlines and the PG&E vault box is across the street on my neighbors property. PG&E said if I wanted to upgrade my existing 100A electrical panel to 200A, I'd have to trench from my electrical box to the vault box across the street and replace the lines in addition to the replacing the conduit to 3" wide conduits.
Based on my conversations with PG&E, it sounds like I need to pay for the entire cost but should PG&E be responsible for paying for the trenching on the public street? I understand I'd have to pay for the trenching on my property (and I'm assuming my neighbors property) but I wasn't sure about the street.
Thanks for your input.
Hi Justin,
It's probably going to be whatever they dictate it is.
If they say you must pay for the street costs they will bill you for it. Possibly beforehand according to their policy.
Ask them how they bill, such as will you have a window to pay for parts beforehand or afterwords, or will they simply add it to your monthly bill and let you pay it that way.
Find out what options they will give you to pay for things.
Also, Realize that if they make a mistake and under-quote you upfront, they may not stick to it and charge you the correct price once installed. So ask them about that too. Meaning don't expect them to eat any loses on the work in your favor.
Good Luck!
@Justin F. The process will be to initiate engineering with pg&e, a deposit will be required. Thwy will estimate cost and either your c-10 or they can do the work. Then a permit based on scope of work with the AHJ (authority having jurisdiction) i.e. city/county. The AHJ will do trench inspection, rough & final electrical inspection. They will issue a meter release to pg&e for them to re-energize. This will be a pricey job and you'll need a reputable c-10. As with all electrical upgrades in California the customer pays for the utilities infrastructure, after release the utility owns that infrastructure and are responsible up to the meter. The property owner is responsible for the infrastructure after the meter. Hope this helps.
Thanks for everyone's replies. As Alan mentioned above, PG&E wants $1,500 to estimate the job. If I decide not to use them, I lose the $1,500. They said it could range between $7,500 to $20K! It all depends on how far they need to trench.
The funny thing (not really) is they couldn't find the PG&E vault box that feeds my house. Their map says it's across the street but they couldn't visually verify it so they couldn't 100% tell me if the wires were direct buried or whether a conduit was used. Based on their inspection of my neighbors vault box and given the homes were built in the 70's they said the powerlines look to be direct buried. I'm not exactly sure that's true since a different electrician thought he saw a 1 1/2" to 2" conduit leading into my electrical panel. Could a powerline go from being direct buried in the street into a conduit at the homeowners property or does a direct buried powerline stay direct buried through the homeowners property up through the electrical panel? In any case PG&E said it needs to be 3" anyways so trenching would be required.
I called 811 in hopes they would identify the powerlines leading up to the vault box but they said they'll only check the area you have marked off for digging. The problem is that I don't know where the existing lines are for my neighbors (neighbors don't know either). It's difficult to get bids from contractors if they don't know how much they need to trench and PG&E wants $1,500 to start the process.
The whole purpose of wanting to upgrade my electrical panel is because I'm looking to build a detached ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) and all the contractors are telling me I need to upgrade my electrical panel (even though the county told me there wasn't a requirement to upgrade, only that it needed to be connected to the main house). I understand upgrading the electrical panel will help with the additional loads the ADU will require. Given the cost of trenching, I was hoping an alternative solution to upgrading my electrical panels was to power the ADU off solar panels and battery backups (even though ADU will still be connected to main house).
Tesla 4kw solar system and 3 Powerwalls are going to cost $24K after tax incentives. Not cheap but I would rather invest the money into a solar array system vs. paying the same amount for trenching. Do you think this is a viable solution? I'm not an electrician so I'm not sure if this setup would work if ADU is connected to main house. I know typically battery backup is used when the grid goes out but not sure if I'm able to pull from battery to avoid tripping any circuit breakers in the main house. ADU would have it's own breaker but I don't know what happens if ADU and main house pulls too much juice at the same time (which circuit breaker trips?). It's the circuit breaker tied to the appliance that pushed loads over 100A right?
I guess there's no way to know for sure unless I pay PG&E $1,500 ugh! If it turns out it's $10K, maybe it makes sense to trench but I'm still needing to power the ADU which requires solar panels to be installed anyways.
Hi, I am in Alameda county with exact same dilemma for adding ADU to existing single family home. I did spend the $1500 and they came back with $36k quote.
I did the math for electrical load and don’t see the need to go beyond 100A. The contracts, do recommend 200A upgrade off the bat, but they did not support the need based on calculations. I hired an electrician to help validate my load calculations. It is dependent on the appliances in the house, a pool, type of heating, etc etc. you can get a template load calculator sheet off the web.
$36k is due to trenching across the street. The panel upgrade cost are in addition to this trenching effort.
cheers,
Rajat
@Rajat, thanks for your input. $36K is ridiculous. Sounds like you didn't move forward with the trenching. Was your ADU an attached or detached? If detached, did they install a 100A subpanel there? Did you have any problems getting approval from the city without upgrading to 200A?
I'll look for the template load calculator. I know they sell appliances that are very efficient and draw less power so they can help with keeping loads to an acceptable level.
With respects to who pays for the street trenching, I'm getting mixed responses. PG&E says I'm responsible but I spoke with a couple of contractors that said PG&E was responsible. One of them said he did a job in Fremont and Union City and the homeowner only had to pay for the trenching on their own property. I don't know if PG&E sent them a separate bill afterwards?
In any case, it probably make more sense to build the ADU first. If we run into a situation where the circuit breaker is constantly tripping then I can revisit upgrading the electrical panels.
You don't necessarily have to upgrade. We kept the 100A panel for the main house as-is. For the Detached ADU, we got a new 200A panel/meter which we installed right next to the main panel. We installed a sub-panel on the ADU and pulled the wires from 200A panel to the ADU sub-panel from the crawl space (which is 100+ feet away).
We did have to deal with 1 complication, we had to connect the 100A and 200A panel via a hot gutter (which is another box), the hot gutter is a special box and that took us about 45 days to come. The reason the 2 panels need to be connected is that PG&E gives only 1 service drop per lot.
My logic in getting a new panel/meter for ADU - PG&E has a tiered pricing system based on usage, say at the lowest tier your electricity bill is x per watt, once you pass that tier of usage, your electricity bill gets x+y per watt. With the heavy usage of the main house (we also have a pool) + I wasn't sure how the ADU tenant would use electricity so I decided to get a seperate meter for ADU.
@Account Closed
Does the 2nd meter belong to PG&E or was it a 3rd party meter you purchased to measure ADU's usage? Do you still get one PG&E bill? From what I understood if the ADU has it's own meter (billed separately by PG&E), you'd have to be connected directly to PG&E lines (via separate powerlines).
Do you have a link to the 200A panel/meter you purchased? What was the cost for installation? Could you PM your electrician to me?
PG&E said if I upgraded from 100A to 200A, I'd have to relocate my electrical panel to be 3ft from the gas lines. Since I'm not upgrading the powerline and simply installing a 200A electrical panel, I'm assuming this wouldn't be an issue. Did you have to file an application with PG&E for them to inspect/approve the installation? If so, which PG&E application was it? Also, did you have to get a permit from the city?
Does the tenant's rent include electricity or do you bill them based on their usage?
Thanks!
2nd meter was installed by PG&E. We now get 2 bills - 1 for each meter. I was under the impression that we would get 2 lines, but PG&E said they would only do 1 service drop so we had to connect both panels using a hot gutter.
I don't know which 200A panel was used, neither do I know the cost for install as it was part of the bundled cost. But I paid around $1600 for the hot gutter for material and $2000 to install it, I will PM you the name of that electrician. If you upgrade 100A to 200A they might ask you to move to meet code. If you don't upgrade, the city cannot make you change existing non-compliant items related to the main house as per the state ADU laws.
My architect had put the location of the new panel on the plan which the city approved. The city then gave us a meter release. PG&E also asked for pictures of the location where the 200A will be installed, they approved that location and then the electrician installed the panel.
I called PG&E renovations dept and they opened a case for me and assigned a technician, those guys are good
Since water and gas is not split, I just charge the tenants extra for utilities
Thanks for everyone's replies. As Alan mentioned above, PG&E wants $1,500 to estimate the job. If I decide not to use them, I lose the $1,500. They said it could range between $7,500 to $20K! It all depends on how far they need to trench.
All poco's (slang for power company) charge for engineering. FWIW 20k in CA is pretty cheap if you consider wages, retirement, overhead expenses etc. It's brutal but reality.
The funny thing (not really) is they couldn't find the PG&E vault box that feeds my house. Their map says it's across the street but they couldn't visually verify it so they couldn't 100% tell me if the wires were direct buried or whether a conduit was used. Based on their inspection of my neighbors vault box and given the homes were built in the 70's they said the powerlines look to be direct buried. I'm not exactly sure that's true since a different electrician thought he saw a 1 1/2" to 2" conduit leading into my electrical panel. Could a powerline go from being direct buried in the street into a conduit at the homeowners property or does a direct buried powerline stay direct buried through the homeowners property up through the electrical panel? In any case PG&E said it needs to be 3" anyways so trenching would be required.
This also extremely common, if they even have any "as builts" on hand its unlikely they are accurate. During 70's 80's "beautification" acts were common. Pg&e does not follow NEC (national electrical code) they have their own code commonly called the "greenbook" (you can find one online pdf. The codes are drastically different. Direct burial was common, usually aluminum. Eventually the wire will fail no matter what. The earth will reclaim this material. Also common is a stub of conduit going up to the panel (slang is a sleeve) new service wire NOW has to be conduit (creating shedule)
I called 811 in hopes they would identify the powerlines leading up to the vault box but they said they'll only check the area you have marked off for digging. The problem is that I don't know where the existing lines are for my neighbors (neighbors don't know either). It's difficult to get bids from contractors if they don't know how much they need to trench and PG&E wants $1,500 to start the process.
Again common (sorry) you could go out with ground paint yourself and mark suspected areas for 811 (aka underground service alert USA) they need parameters to operate their equipment.
The whole purpose of wanting to upgrade my electrical panel is because I'm looking to build a detached ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) and all the contractors are telling me I need to upgrade my electrical panel (even though the county told me there wasn't a requirement to upgrade, only that it needed to be connected to the main house). I understand upgrading the electrical panel will help with the additional loads the ADU will require. Given the cost of trenching, I was hoping an alternative solution to upgrading my electrical panels was to power the ADU off solar panels and battery backups (even though ADU will still be connected to main house).
Tesla 4kw solar system and 3 Powerwalls are going to cost $24K after tax incentives. Not cheap but I would rather invest the money into a solar array system vs. paying the same amount for trenching. Do you think this is a viable solution? I'm not an electrician so I'm not sure if this setup would work if ADU is connected to main house. I know typically battery backup is used when the grid goes out but not sure if I'm able to pull from battery to avoid tripping any circuit breakers in the main house. ADU would have it's own breaker but I don't know what happens if ADU and main house pulls too much juice at the same time (which circuit breaker trips?). It's the circuit breaker tied to the appliance that pushed loads over 100A right?
Grid tied solar has no bearing on this. When the grid goes down so does pv generation. Batteries are backup only. Nothing supplements load calls. Load calls are not rims, it's more complicated than that. Nec codes for distribution from panel out don't consider efficiencies of consumer products
I guess there's no way to know for sure unless I pay PG&E $1,500 ugh! If it turns out it's $10K, maybe it makes sense to trench but I'm still needing to power the ADU which requires solar panels to be installed anyways.
No it doesn't, engineering of load/distribution etc. Is its entity. Grid tied renewables are supplemental. FWIW pg&e doesn't want homeowners to generate their own power. They would prefer solar microgrids that they would control. In fact the lobbying to eliminate personal renewables is heavy.
I understand this is frustrating but things aren't as clad in stone as most think. The macro picture in California is very complicated. On the execution end of work alot of info is tribal and fluent, very fluent
@Rajat M. 200 amp panels are industry standard. Load calls are not rims. EUSERC limits breaker spaces based on ampacity. Typically 24 for 100, 42 for 200. Current code requires all panels to have whole house surge protection. New panels must be "solar ready"
Article 100 of NEC requires "all work to be done in a code legal and tradesman like fashion. When we build new smaller homes we still use 200a
@Justin F. All service upgrades require customer to pay, upon final and meter release poco is responsible. Yes you are buying infrastructure for poco.
@Pooja C. Pg&e assigns meter services based on apn. It also has to do with property taxes, for purposes of financing through pace or ygrene etc.
@Justin F. Both pg&e and the building dept will need to be brought to the same page when relocating a main service. Access, easements, fences yada yada
@Account Closed
Thanks for your insight. Are you saying with grid tied solar, adding solar and battery backup won't help with lowering the chances of the ADU tripping circuit breakers? Based on Tesla Powerall video, it looks like the Powerwalls can power the house even when the grid isn't down. When power requirements exceed what the solar panels produce, it pulls fromthe grid but if the solar panels produce excess, it powers the house and charges the batteries and then at night the house gets powered by the batteries. https://www.tesla.com/support/...
I can also look into energy efficient appliances that draw less amps.
What would you recommend in my situation? If upgrading from 100A to 200A was cost prohibitive.
@Justin F. Pardon my fat finger typing and auto correct. If the main panel has grid tied solar & battery and a breaker feeding the adu and the grid goes down then both the house and adu will run off the battery. The system should be sized to accommodate the load of the adu.
If the sub feed breaker trips at the main from the adu over current or grounding out (short circuit) then its isolated from the main and the battery wont power the adu.
Typically we run the grid tie on the main as to have the battery power everything.
I myself haven't done solar/ battery on an adu independent of the main in typical urban/suburban locations. It may exist but haven't seen it.
One thing to note with all of this is available breaker spaces, in particular at the main but not exclusive of the sub(adu). Its best to not use up all the spaces so that future distribution is available. Its not if but when additional circuits may need to be installed.
While appliances etc. are definitely becoming way more efficient, California codes on how many dedicated circuits has increased over the years, and will continue to increase. I.e the amount of available spaces is of importance.
Also note that ALL new main panel installs are required to be "solar ready" & have whole house surge arrestor. Sometimes the surge arrestor uses up some of the breaker spaces depending on the manufacturer.
Hope this helps
(Rural & off grid are a whole other thing)
@Justin F. It is an attached ADU. The proposal I got from PG&E was after I paid them $1500. The cost is for trenching across the street, to the existing electrical meter. PGE will do the work to get the wires/conduit in. The meter installation and wiring to the ADU from exiting main panel, would be done by my electrician, at my cost.
Even, if I don't have to add a 200A main panel, ADU will need a sub panel. We need to run a wire in crawl space to connect the existing main panel to ADU's subpanel.
@Account Closed your plan sounds excellent. I wanted to do something similar. But, in my case I would still need to do the trenching to get conduit in to allow for 200A capacity. It's a 70s built house, and we have wire directly in dirt. The new code requires conduit and hence the need for expensive trenching.
Hi
First time poster. Same issue here. For the people that did go through with it, which Bay Area company did you go with to trench? What was the quote?
Thank you in advance.
@Justin F. Hey justin- i am an electrical engineer at an electric utility in the florida keys. Every utility has their own process with respect to what the customer has to pay. Our program pays for the conduit and pulling the underground wire, but the homeowner has to pay for the trenching. Our policy (which ive learned isnt common) is to actually pay for the trench if it crosses a road (both public or private) but again… each scenario is different. Our business model is probably different as compared to PG&E. It’s likely that you will have to pay for the trenching and if your meter needs to be moved to the front of the house, that cost would be your responsibility as well (most likely). If you have more questions, please give me a holler!
@Matt Devincenzo this is true, but when you put power lines underground, it improves the reliability of the member… which in turn, helps the numbers for the utility. There might be an underground power line program which drives incentives for the homeowner.
2nd meter was installed by PG&E. We now get 2 bills - 1 for each meter. I was under the impression that we would get 2 lines, but PG&E said they would only do 1 service drop so we had to connect both panels using a hot gutter.
I don't know which 200A panel was used, neither do I know the cost for install as it was part of the bundled cost. But I paid around $1600 for the hot gutter for material and $2000 to install it, I will PM you the name of that electrician. If you upgrade 100A to 200A they might ask you to move to meet code. If you don't upgrade, the city cannot make you change existing non-compliant items related to the main house as per the state ADU laws.
My architect had put the location of the new panel on the plan which the city approved. The city then gave us a meter release. PG&E also asked for pictures of the location where the 200A will be installed, they approved that location and then the electrician installed the panel.
I called PG&E renovations dept and they opened a case for me and assigned a technician, those guys are good
Since water and gas is not split, I just charge the tenants extra for utilities
@Pooja C THANK YOU very much for sharing this with the Forum. I am in the same complication now with PG&E for my ADU. Would very much appreciate information of your Electrician. Sent you PM. Many Thanks.
@Justin F. It is an attached ADU. The proposal I got from PG&E was after I paid them $1500. The cost is for trenching across the street, to the existing electrical meter. PGE will do the work to get the wires/conduit in. The meter installation and wiring to the ADU from exiting main panel, would be done by my electrician, at my cost.
Even, if I don't have to add a 200A main panel, ADU will need a sub panel. We need to run a wire in crawl space to connect the existing main panel to ADU's subpanel.
@Account Closed your plan sounds excellent. I wanted to do something similar. But, in my case I would still need to do the trenching to get conduit in to allow for 200A capacity. It's a 70s built house, and we have wire directly in dirt. The new code requires conduit and hence the need for expensive trenching.
Do you get the $1500 back if you decide not to upgrade? I’m in the same boat. PG&E is asking $1500 to start the estimate. The first project advisor told me the $1500 is refundable…
They use $1500 as deposit to start the quote. At end of quote, they calculate the hrs used to generate the quote based on project complexity etc. So as next step, they refund you part of unused deposit. Or they send you a bill if they need more than deposit. Hope that helps.