Licensed & insured · NC electrical contractor
Mon–Fri 8AM–5PM · Emergency 24/7
Licensed & insured · NC electrical contractor
Mon–Fri 8AM–5PM · Emergency 24/7
100-amp and 200-amp service upgrades, fuse box and Federal Pacific replacement, meter base, mast and grounding — permitted, county-inspected and priced in writing before we start. One day on site for most homes.
On site, most homes
Typical upgrade
Permitted & inspected
Cities served
An electrical panel upgrade in Fayetteville, NC is rarely about wanting more power. It is about a service that was sized for a different decade.
Much of Cumberland County was built between the 1950s and the 1980s, when a 60-amp or 100-amp service was considered generous. Those same houses now run heat pumps, electric ranges, home offices, hot tubs and EV chargers off panels that were never designed to carry them.
An upgrade replaces more than the box on the wall. Depending on what we find, the job covers the panel and breakers, the meter base, the mast and weather head, the service entrance cable, and the grounding and bonding that ties the whole system together. Get one of those wrong and the county inspector will not sign it off — which is exactly why this is not a job for a handyman or a weekend.
We upgrade panels for homeowners, landlords, remodelling contractors and builders across sixteen cities in eastern North Carolina.
If any of these describe your house, the panel is worth looking at before it forces the issue.
A breaker that trips once is doing its job. One that trips every week is telling you the circuit — or the whole service — is carrying more than it was designed for.
A visible voltage drop when a large motor kicks in usually means the service is undersized for the load already on it.
Discolouration around a breaker or a smell of hot plastic points to a loose or arcing connection. This one is not a wait-and-see item — call the same day.
A box that is warm to the touch means heat is being generated at connections that should be cool. Heat at the bus bar is how panel fires start.
Humidity and wind-driven rain reach exterior equipment in this part of the state. Corrosion on the bus or the breaker clips degrades the connection long before anything visibly fails.
If every slot is full, or someone has fitted tandem breakers to squeeze more in, there is no safe way to add a circuit for a charger, a hot tub or a renovation.
Fuse boxes should be replaced regardless of symptoms. So should several breaker panel brands — which is the next section.
Some are replaced because of what they are, not because of anything they are currently doing. If your house has one of these, the upgrade is not really optional — it is a matter of when.
Fitted in enormous numbers through the 1950s to 1980s and found throughout Cumberland County. These panels have a long-standing reputation for breakers that fail to trip under fault conditions. Many insurers now decline to write or renew a policy on a house that still has one, and home inspectors flag them on sight.
Both carry known issues with breakers welding themselves to the bus bar, so the breaker stays live even when the handle reads off. Replacement breakers are difficult to source and often are not genuine. Once one of these shows heat damage, repair is not a sensible option.
Fuse boxes are not inherently unsafe, but they are almost always paired with a 60-amp service and decades-old wiring, and the fuses get replaced with the wrong rating over time. Most are well past the point where anything short of a full service upgrade brings the house up to code.
Selling or refinancing? A problem board is one of the most common items a home inspector raises, and it turns into a negotiation on price at closing. Replacing it beforehand costs less than the discount a buyer will ask for.
No honest electrician can price a panel upgrade over the phone, because the panel is only part of what we may be replacing. What we can do is tell you exactly what moves the number, so the quote you receive makes sense when you read it.
National 2026 cost guides put a typical residential 100-amp to 200-amp upgrade in the region of $1,300–$2,500, with full projects reaching $4,000 or more where the meter base, mast or service entrance cable also need replacing. Permit fees commonly run $100–$300.
Those are national averages, not a quote. Your figure depends on the six factors listed here, and you get it in writing after an on-site assessment.
We price the job, not the hour. After the assessment you receive a written scope and a firm price covering labour, materials, the permit and the inspection, and nothing begins until you approve it. If something unexpected turns up behind it, we stop, show you, and quote it before continuing — you will not find it on the invoice for the first time at the end.
The install is one day for most homes. The whole project takes longer than that, because permits and inspections run on the county’s schedule rather than ours. Here is the honest version.
We measure what the house actually draws rather than guessing from square footage. That decides whether you need 200 amps or whether 150 is genuinely enough, and it tells us what else needs replacing alongside the panel.
You receive a detailed scope and a fixed figure. Nothing is ordered and nothing starts until you approve it.
We pull the electrical permit with the county. Turnaround is usually a few business days, occasionally longer when the office is busy.
The utility disconnects at the meter and we complete the work. Most residential upgrades are a single day on site, and you should plan to be without power for the greater part of it.
The utility restores the service, we energise the panel, and every circuit is tested and labelled properly — not with the previous owner’s pencil marks.
The inspector reviews the completed work, typically within a few business days. Once it passes, the certificate is on record and follows the house through to closing.
The panel is already open and the power already off, so these cost far less done together than booked as separate visits.
A panel upgrade touches the service entrance, the grounding system and every circuit in the house. It is not the job to hand to whoever quoted lowest.
East Point Electric holds a North Carolina electrical contractor licence and carries liability and workers’ compensation cover. Check it with the NC Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors before you book — we would rather you did.
Some contractors quote lower by leaving the permit out. That saves you a few hundred dollars and costs you the inspection record your insurer and your buyer will both ask for.
Boris and JB run the crews themselves, so the person who assessed your panel is the person who replaces it.
Every install carries a workmanship warranty. If a fault traces to our work, we return and fix it at no charge.
Sixteen cities across Cumberland, Harnett, Lee, Wake, Sampson, Bladen and Hoke counties.
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Hours
There is no single figure, because the price depends on the service size, the condition of the mast, meter base and service entrance cable, how accessible the panel is, and the county permit fee. National 2026 guides put a typical 100-amp to 200-amp upgrade around $1,300 to $2,500, rising past $4,000 when service-side equipment also needs replacing. You get your own firm figure in writing after an on-site assessment.
The installation itself is a single day for most homes. The full project runs longer, because the permit takes a few business days to issue and the county inspection is scheduled after the work is finished. From the day you approve the quote, plan on one to three weeks end to end.
Yes. The utility disconnects at the meter before we start, and you should plan to be without power for the greater part of the working day. We give you the date in advance so you can move anything in the freezer and arrange to work elsewhere if you need to.
Yes, and we pull it as part of the job. A service change is permitted work and has to be inspected by the county before it is signed off. That inspection record is what your insurer will want after a claim and what a buyer’s attorney will look for at closing, so it is never worth skipping to save a few hundred dollars.
A load calculation answers that rather than a rule of thumb. For most homes with a heat pump, an electric range and any plans for a charger or an addition, 200 amps is the sensible target. Some smaller houses genuinely do not need it, and we will tell you so — there is no reason to sell you amperage you will never draw.
Repair makes sense when a single breaker has failed on an otherwise sound, modern panel with space to spare. Replace when the panel is a fuse box, a Federal Pacific, a Zinsco or an ITE Imperial, when there is heat damage or corrosion on the bus, when it is full, or when the service is too small for the house. Repeated repairs on an old panel are money spent twice.
Sometimes, but not always. A Level 2 charger needs a dedicated 40 to 50 amp circuit, which many 100-amp services cannot carry alongside a heat pump and an electric range. We run the load calculation before quoting the charger, so you find out either way before you commit to anything.
Call 910.850.1762 for an electrical panel upgrade in Fayetteville, NC and we will arrange an on-site assessment, run the load calculation and put a firm price in writing. Licensed, insured, permitted and inspected — across sixteen cities in eastern North Carolina.