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Hi, this is George Argo with Argo electrical services. And I am the surge protector guy. So this is our first podcast, and welcome Glad you’re here. Hopefully we can add some value to your listening. Pleasure. And yeah, maybe there’s something that’s pertinent and it relates to you. So the name of today’s podcast is four reasons to upgrade your residential panel. First and foremost, electrical upgrades in your interior electrical panel provide safety, when you change this panel layout, you’re have to get an inspection done. More than likely, first and foremost, you’re going to have the inspection that way you’ve got documentation, through the authority having jurisdiction, the documentation, one is going to add value to your home when you get ready to sell it, because they’re going to have a public record, that the work was performed by a licensed, trained and, you know, professional individual to as far as safety is concerned, the new breakers you’ll be required to install arc fault ground fault circuit interrupter breakers, on all your single pole branch circuits, you’ll no longer have to change out ground fault circuit interrupters on the outside of the home and the kitchen or in the bathroom, the breaker and the protection will be in the panel the arc fault breakers protect all the living areas of the home and you know that includes the dad in the dining room, you know, all the bedrooms, basically any space that are you know, a branch circuit goes to the single pole is required. Now, they also are passed in 2020 I believe they passed requirement that even the 220 circuits that are below 60 amps, a 60 amp rating are required to have ground fault protection as well. Like your air conditioning condensing units, your water heater, your you know, maybe maybe you have a well pump at your property, all the authorities are not following that, generally speaking, the National Electrical Code moves faster and I know and, and one of the counties that I do most of my work, which is Hall County, you know, covers Gainesville, Georgia, they’re still operating out the 2014 code cycle. However, you know, this is requirements you know, and as long as the stuff wired up correctly, yes, the breakers are more expensive, but you get much more protection through those breakers. Alright, so the second reason to upgrade your residential interior panel is because this upgrade will make your panel more efficient. First and foremost. When you do this upgrade, you’ll also more than likely to just depending on how old your home is, you’ll be required to change the feeder wire that comes from your service entrance or your meter base into that panel and what I’m getting at is for years and years and years you know from before I was born, up until you know around 2000 The electrician would bring a three wire set coming from the meter socket into the interior panel you know would be like Fianna 200 amp panel b two for all conductors and you know a two out grounded conductor. And so anyway, now you won’t the two four out hot hot legs basically you want a four out grounding LAN or the neutral wire and then you’ll also have the two all bare bare aluminum. Okay, and so, you know it’s you know basically it’s not exactly this, but it’s basically giving you more ground. You know the new breakers alone with this new wiring set. You know, gives those breakers the the opportunity the availability, to be able to index the load on those wires, and monitor them. Okay, and, and, you know, so the whole point of point number two be more efficient, you know, your your air conditioners, your water heater, your refrigerator, you know, those are all high ticket items anymore, you know, I just replaced the water heater the other day, and did the work completely myself and I still had $875 for, you know, a 50 gallon water heater, and didn’t have to change the breaker, all I did was you know, disconnect from the water lines, drying the old one out and roll the new one in there. And it was like, you know, 842 bucks or whatever. And then I had to get some fittings and, you know, some threading, what I call pipe dope. And but anyway, it came out to, you know, about 850 $875 time we were all said and done, you know, new refrigerator might go up to $2,000, depending on how nice refrigerator, you have the washing machine, the dryer, they all have, they all have electronic boards, the HVAC units all have electronic boards, these new panels will help the new breakers to be able to monitor them. You know, one of the requirements now, in the 2023 load calculation says that, you know, we shall protect the premises with a whole house surge protector. And I’ve been installing surge protectors now for about 10 years, you know and buy a whole house instead of the surge protector just being plugged into the receptacle in your office or in a bedroom, wherever you might have a desktop computer or TV or whatever, you know, and you have a strip with a you know, little surge protector, these guys actually plug in either at the meter base or into the main panel. And you know, it protects your property from transient voltage, transient voltages, unwanted voltage, maybe could come from a lightning strike, it might come from dirty power from the power company. But in any event, if you have those things, there’s kind of like a capacitor or something in there. And you know, you get too much, you get too much voltage in there. And that thing sucks it up like a sponge. And it’ll burn out that capacitor, but it doesn’t go into the home, it’s not going to you know, blow up the HVAC unit, it’s not going to burn up your you know, your washer or dryer, you know, my wife’s got a washing machine, it plays a little tune for you when it’s done. And, of course, I’m happy because she doesn’t make me wants to close. That’s my sad attempt but a joke. But anyway, so the third reason to upgrade your residential panel, it’s going to make the system more efficient. And ultimately at at some point, it’s probably going to save you some on your energy bill. You know, the new heating and air units, the new water heaters, especially if you have tankless water heaters, the new system is going to be more responsive. And you know, it’s just, it’s just like losing 20 pounds and being able to jog a little bit better and your heart rate, heart rate being a little bit better. It’s the same thing with these electrical panels. It’s just like putting a new air filter on your car, changing the old and all that the the motors just got to perform better. So the third, the third reason is to upgrade your residential panel, you will now be code compliant. Okay. And by being code compliant, if you’re going to sell your home and you know maybe you hit the lottery and you’re gonna move to Florida or move to Las Vegas, or or maybe you’re just going to upgrade and buy a newer home or a you know, maybe you’re getting older and you want a smaller home, the kids are gone. You know, maybe you’re an empty nester, but um, the code compliance will make your home more valuable because more than likely when you get ready to sell your home
your new bar is going to request an inspection to be performed on the property. And you know, if you got a brand new panel with Arc Fault ground fault breakers, you got a whole house surge protector and all this work is documented through the authority having jurisdiction and you’re A geographical area that you live, you know, if you spend $5,000 on these upgrades or similar upgrades, you know, it’ll be worth $10,000 When you get ready to sail. And when I say $10,000, I’m not on top of what you’re asking. So anyway, and the final reason that I’ve listed to upgrade your residential panel, your interior electrical panel was because of peace of mind. You know, can you really put $1 mark on peace of mind, being able to sleep well, at night, you know, our trade is, is, you know, it’s basically three reasons that people call us at our electrical services, they’ve either you know, something’s not working, they’ve had some kind of an emergency, or the husband or the wife has made, you know, a conscious decision that they want to do a remodel. And, you know, we’re not like Heating and Air guys, you know, the heating and air industry, you know, you need to, you know, my, my heating and air guru that I lean on, for information and direction, you know, he tells me, every time I get a power bill, I need to be changing the air filter, yeah, maybe that’s a little bit much, but when I start doing it every other month, I tend to stretch it out to three or four months, and then I noticed, you know, the filters are much nastier. But you know, at the end of the day, the peace of mind that you’re going to gain is just by knowing that you’ve got these delicate breakers that work much better. It’s much more improved than, you know, the equipment that was available on the market 30 years ago, if your home was that old. And we do recommend if you know, if the home is over 2025 years old, you know, kind of a little rainy day fun just for that. And, you know, it’s kind of like people talk about, you know, your computer crash, and it’s not a question of, if it’s gonna happen, it’s when and, you know, you can never have too, too good of operating system when it comes to electrical parts. Like say, you know, the, the ability for these new breakers to be able to sense a problem in the circuit, and tree up, and to give you knowledge thereof. You know, it really has been a game changer. So anyway, just to, you know, go back through what we talked about. So, once again, this podcast was four reasons to upgrade your residential interior electrical panel, you know, one was for safety tubes, the new panel will be much more efficient and one that started you’re 40 years old, three, you know, you would now be code compliant which adds value to your home and of course, you know, with it being inspected and everything the documentation you know, as a homeowner, it covers you because if there was a catastrophe or whatever and you know, you didn’t have a documented the insurance company would never pay a nickel. And the final reason to upgrade your interior electrical residential panels is peace of mind. You know, what, can you really put a price tag on peace of mind and being able to sleep well. So anyway, once again, my name is George Argo with our goal electrical services. I am the surge protector guy. You can find us at Argo electrical.com. You can find me on Facebook, on Instagram. We’re we’re working on building out our youtube channel even more. We’re going to turn this this podcast topic into a video as well. So check that out on YouTube and have a wonderful day. Thank you
