The most common call
Electrical Panel and Service Upgrades
A panel change swaps what's on the wall. A service upgrade rebuilds what feeds it, drop, meter and all. We publish a flat rate for both, and we'll tell you honestly which one your house needs.
Chapter 01
What a panel looks like right before it becomes a problem
Most of the panel calls we get start with something the homeowner has been watching for a while and finally decided to stop ignoring. A cover plate that's warm to the touch or discolored around a breaker. A burning smell near an outlet that comes and goes. A buzz or a crackle from inside the box when something big switches on. None of that is normal, and none of it gets better on its own.
The rest of the calls are about running out of room rather than a fault: a breaker panel with no spare slots left for the circuit a remodel needs, or a service that was sized decades ago for a house that ran a fridge and a television, now trying to carry central air and an EV charger too. A lot of North Portland's housing stock in the St. Johns area predates 1950, and a panel or fuse box over 25 to 30 years old is worth a look on age alone, even with no obvious symptom. If your own panel is doing any of this, call us at (503) 621-7122 and we'll come take a look.
A wall of vintage industrial disconnect panels and switchgear labelled by circuit, on display in the Bridgetown Electric shop
The two jobs we quote, and why they're priced differently
A panel change is the smaller of the two: we remove and dispose of your existing panel and install a new one sized to match the electrical service you already have coming into the house. That's the $3,495 flat rate on our pricing page, and most panel changes are done in a single day.
A service upgrade is a bigger job because it takes in everything feeding the panel, not only the panel itself. We coordinate directly with the power company on the drop and the meter, rebuild the service to the new capacity, and only then set a panel sized to match it. That coordination is what pushes it to $6,995, and it's also why it can't be booked and finished same day the way a straight panel change often can. We'll tell you which one your house actually needs before you commit to either figure. Both prices carry Bridgetown's usual qualifier: conditions apply, pricing subject to change.
Chapter 03
How the day runs, and what changing the panel doesn't undo
The sequence is the same one we've run since 1994: an initial assessment to confirm what you have and what you need, permit coordination with the city before anyone touches a wire, the scheduled service itself, system testing once the new panel is live, and a final walkthrough so you know what changed. Whole-house surge protection gets added at this same stage for a lot of customers, since the panel is already open and it's the cheapest point in the job's life to add it.
A new panel is backed by our 1-year workmanship warranty from the date of service, with manufacturer warranties covering the parts themselves, and we're licensed, bonded and insured under Oregon CCB #103824 and electrical contractor #26-887C. What a panel change won't fix on its own is knob and tube still running to the outlets behind it, or a breaker that starts tripping again a year later, both signs it's worth another call rather than something to wait out.
Bridgetown Electric — Licensed, bonded and insured. CCB #103824, electrical contractor 26-887C. Call (503) 621-7122.