Electrical Panel Upgrades in Scarborough, Maine

Scarborough’s housing is much younger than Portland’s or South Portland’s. The median home was built in 1988, about 30 percent of homes went up in 2000 or later and about 17 percent since 2010, in the Census Bureau’s current five-year estimates. Yet the largest single group, about 31 percent, was built from 1980 through 1999, and houses of that age that have never had an upgrade may still be on the 100- or 150-amp service they were built with. Those services were adequate for a house heated with oil or propane. They get tight when a family adds heat pumps, a car charger, a hot tub or a finished basement over a few years.

Heating shows where the pressure is coming from. Close to 48 percent of occupied homes here still heat with fuel oil and about 19 percent with propane, while about 15 percent use electricity and about 13 percent use natural gas from Unitil’s Northern Utilities system. About 1.5 percent of homes even list solar as their heating source, a higher share than Portland, South Portland, Westbrook or Cape Elizabeth. Solar arrays, batteries and heat pumps all interact with the panel: the busbar rating limits how much a solar system can feed back, and a panel that is already full may need replacing before either project can be permitted.

Older and seasonal houses have their own issues. About 8 percent of homes date from before 1940, and the beach villages hold a stock of summer cottages, including around 300 at Higgins Beach, and a cottage converted to year-round living may still be on a service meant for a few lights and a stove. Electric heat, a heat pump or a well-equipped kitchen added to one of those is often the moment the service has to grow. The town’s Planning and Codes office at 259 U.S. Route 1 issues electrical permits, and its inspectors check a permanent service for two ground rods and a bonded panel. Goodnow Electric files for that permit, books the meter pull with Central Maine Power, swaps out Federal Pacific, Zinsco or Challenger boxes when they turn up, and can fit a whole-home surge protector while everything is open. On a newer house with a finished basement, relocating a panel that ended up behind drywall is sometimes part of the same job.