Need a licensed electrician to upgrade the electrical panel at your home or business in Seattle, Shoreline, Bothell, Lynnwood, Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond, Sammamish, or Issaquah, Washington?
Give us a call or text at? (206) 914-3243 — use the form to set up your appointment.
CARROELC982BD
& insured
5.0 ★★★★★
North Seattle
Residential and commercial, small repairs to new construction — all of it priced up front and done to code.
Old fuse boxes and crowded panels replaced with clean, labelled service that handles what your house actually draws.
125A to 200A, meter base and mast included. We coordinate the utility shutdown so you’re not without power longer than six hours.
Kitchens, basements and whole-house renovations. Knob-and-tube removed, new circuits run, everything photographed before the drywall goes up.
Level 2 home charging on a dedicated 240V circuit. Sized for your car and your panel, permitted and inspected.
Tenant improvements, new builds, lighting and service work. After-hours scheduling so your floor keeps trading.
Breakers that keep tripping, dead outlets, flickering lights. We trace the fault instead of guessing at the drywall.
Not sure which one you need? Describe what’s happening and we’ll tell you — no charge for the answer.
The electrical panel is where everything in a building either works or doesn’t. It distributes power to every circuit, protects the wiring behind the walls, and sets a hard ceiling on what the property can support. When a panel is undersized, obsolete, or full, it stops being a background component and starts limiting what you can do with the house.
Carroll Electric handles panel work from straightforward replacements to full service upgrades — swapping obsolete and failed panels, increasing service capacity, adding subpanels, and correcting the accumulated shortcuts that show up in panels modified over decades. We’re a family business and a small, hands-on crew, which means the person who assesses your panel is typically the same person on site doing the work. You get a clear answer on what your panel actually needs, which is often less than you’d expect and occasionally more.
Call or text us at (206) 914-3243 to talk through your electrical service.
“I highly recommend Carroll Electric. Cameron quickly responded and scheduled the same day visit while all the other electric companies were not available at 6pm. He is very knowledgeable, and he explained the cause of the issue, then he fixed all with a short time.”
Shinobu Y. ★★★★★
Carroll Electric was built around a simple belief: customers deserve honest communication, quality workmanship, and an electrician they can trust. As a family-owned company with a young, passionate team, we’re committed to making every project straightforward — from the first phone call to the final walkthrough.
We don’t believe in confusing estimates or unnecessary upselling. We believe in showing up when we say we will, keeping our work clean, and doing every installation the right way.
“We’d rather lose a job to an honest number than win one with a vague one.”
Tyler Carroll — Manager & Founding Member
Whether it’s a panel upgrade, remodel rewire, EV charger installation, commercial project, or troubleshooting a difficult issue, every job receives the same attention to detail, craftsmanship, and respect.
We’re proud to be a local family business serving our community with transparency, professionalism, and electrical work built to last.
Family
Owned
4
On the crew
Licensed
Bonded & insured
5.0★
Google rating
Cameron Carroll
Owner / Electrician
Tyler Carroll
Manager / Founding Member
Slater Bradley
Original Electrician
Michael Martinez
Apprentice
Most panel conversations start one of two ways: something is going wrong, or something new needs to be added and there’s no room for it.
The warning signs are usually visible. Breakers that trip repeatedly on circuits that aren’t overloaded. A panel that’s physically full, with no open spaces left. Tandem or double-tapped breakers crammed in to make room for circuits added over the years. Rust, moisture, scorching, or a burnt smell at the panel. Warmth at the panel cover. Lights that dim when large appliances start. And in older houses, service that was sized for a very different era — 60 or 100 amps for a home now running a modern kitchen, laundry, home office, and heat.
The other path is planning. An EV charger, a heat pump, a mini-split, a hot tub, an ADU, a kitchen remodel, a shop in the garage, or a solar and battery installation all add load, and each one runs into the same question: does the panel have room, and does the service have capacity? It’s better to answer that before equipment is ordered than during installation.
If either situation sounds familiar, an on-site assessment will tell you what you’re working with. Sometimes the panel is fine and only needs space cleared up. We’ll tell you that if it’s what we find.
Photography is one of Carroll Electric’s strongest branding assets. We showcase our real electricians, real homes, real commercial projects, and the quality craftsmanship behind every installation.
The same questions come up on nearly every panel job. Here’s how we answer them.
Do I actually need an upgrade, or just a repair? Sometimes a failed breaker, a corroded connection, or a subpanel to add spaces resolves it. We diagnose before recommending a replacement.
What size service do I need? For most homes, 200 amps is the practical standard and leaves room for electrification. Some households genuinely need more, and some are fine where they are. We calculate it rather than defaulting to the largest option.
How long will my power be off? That depends on the scope of the work and on the utility’s schedule for the disconnect and reconnect. We’ll give you the expected window in advance so you can plan around it, and we’ll tell you if anything changes.
Is my panel one of the problem brands? Certain older panels — Federal Pacific Stab-Lok, Zinsco, and some Challenger models among them — have known reliability concerns and are often flagged by inspectors and insurers. If you have one, we’ll tell you and explain why it matters.
What will it cost? You receive an itemized written estimate after an on-site assessment, with labor and materials broken out separately, so you can see how the number was reached.
Same crew, same rates, same paperwork. What changes is how we schedule around you and who we send the invoice to.
Panel upgrades, EV chargers, dead outlets, breakers that keep tripping. You get a written number before anything starts, and a call before we spend more than it.
Rough-in and trim on the date we gave you. Inspections cleared without you chasing them, and a phone call the moment anything looks like it might slip.
Tenant calls handled the same day. Certificate of insurance on file, one invoice format across every unit you run, and photos of the work sent through each time.
Tenant improvements, new builds, lighting and service work. After-hours and weekend scheduling so your floor keeps trading while we’re in there.
Kitchens, additions, whole-house rewires. Clean installs, labelled circuits, and everything behind the drywall photographed before it’s closed up.
The people who just call us when something goes wrong. We keep a record of what we’ve done at your property, so we’re not starting from scratch every visit.
We’d rather be the electrician you call for the next ten years than the one who won a single job on price. If you manage more than one property, ask about an account.
“My wife and I are very impressed with the service from Carroll Electric. I can honestly say they are hands down the best electric company I have ever worked with. We have called them for various projects in the past and will continue to use them for anything needed in the future.”
Brandon V. ★★★★★
Carroll Electric exists to provide high-quality electrical work while creating a customer experience built on transparency, communication, reliability, and craftsmanship. These principles guide every decision, from the first phone call to the final walkthrough.
01
Our rates are published on this website. You approve a written number before any work begins, and permits and parts are passed through at cost with the receipt attached.
02
Calls and messages answered the same working day. If we find something unexpected behind the wall, you get a phone call before we spend another dollar of your money.
03
We hold the date we gave you. Licensed, bonded and insured, permits pulled where they’re required, and we meet the inspector ourselves rather than leaving it to you.
04
Labelled circuits, dressed conductors, and a panel directory you can read at 6am. We photograph what goes behind the drywall so there’s a record long after we’ve gone.
We photograph every job as we go — partly so you have a record of what’s in your walls, partly because clean work is worth showing.
Old
New
Old
New
Every job gets photographed as we go. If you want to see work like yours before you commit, ask and we’ll send you the closest match we’ve done nearby.
These two get used interchangeably, but they’re different jobs at different prices. Knowing which one you need is the single most useful thing to come out of an assessment.
A panel swap replaces the panel itself while keeping the existing service size. This is the right job when the service capacity is adequate but the panel is obsolete, full, damaged, or one of the brands with known problems. The meter, the service entrance conductors, and the utility connection stay as they are, which keeps the scope contained.
A service upgrade increases the capacity coming into the building — commonly from 60 or 100 amps to 200. That involves the meter base, the service entrance conductors, the grounding electrode system, and coordination with your utility for the disconnect and reconnect. It’s a larger project because it changes the building’s relationship to the utility, not just its distribution equipment.
The distinction matters for budgeting. Homeowners often come in with a price they found online without knowing which of the two jobs it described, and the gap between them is significant. We’ll tell you which one your property actually needs and why, with pricing for each, before you decide.
Sizing a service is arithmetic, not intuition, and the calculation is what separates a panel that fits the house from one that’s either inadequate or oversold.
We calculate the actual demand of the property — the existing loads plus whatever is planned — using the methods the code requires rather than a rule of thumb about square footage. Two houses of identical size can land in very different places depending on whether heat and cooking are gas or electric, whether there’s a heat pump, whether an EV charger is going in, and what’s in the garage.
For most single-family homes, 200-amp service is the practical answer and leaves meaningful headroom for future electrification. Some properties genuinely need 400 amps, usually large homes with electric heat, multiple EVs, a shop, or an ADU. Others are comfortable at 100 and would gain nothing from an upgrade beyond the invoice.
We also look at the panel independently of the service. A panel can be at capacity in terms of physical spaces while the service still has electrical headroom — in which case a subpanel, or replacing the panel with one that has more spaces, solves the problem without touching the utility connection. That’s a substantially smaller project, and it’s worth checking before assuming an upgrade.
Any licensed electrician can land the job to code. What people remember is everything around it — whether you called back, showed up when you said, and left the place clean.
01
Rates are on this website. You approve a written number before we start.
02
Calls and messages answered same day. You always know who is coming and when.
03
An owner is on site or a phone call away on every project. No account manager in between.
04
Real photos of your job, not stock images of someone else’s. You see what went in.
05
Itemised quotes, permits filed, inspections logged, invoices you can actually read.
06
Labelled circuits, dressed conductors, a directory you can actually read at 6am.
07
Thermal imaging and circuit tracing find the fault instead of guessing at the drywall.
08
Marked van, branded shirts, and the same crew each visit. No mystery truck in the drive.
09
If a repair will hold another five years, we’ll tell you that instead of selling a rewire.
Some panels are worth replacing on their own merits, independent of capacity.
Fuse boxes are the clearest case. They’re not inherently unsafe when intact, but they offer no ground-fault or arc-fault protection, they’re commonly found with oversized fuses installed to stop nuisance blowing, and they signal wiring of an era that may need attention itself. Insurers and buyers treat them as a flag.
Several breaker panel lines have known reliability concerns as well. Federal Pacific Stab-Lok, Zinsco, and certain Challenger panels are the ones that come up most often, with documented issues around breakers failing to trip under fault conditions. Replacement parts are scarce or unavailable, home inspectors flag them routinely, and some insurers decline or surcharge coverage. If you have one, replacing it is generally the right call even when nothing has visibly gone wrong.
We also find panels that are simply in poor condition — corrosion from a damp basement or an exterior location, water intrusion, heat damage at the bus, double-tapped breakers, undersized or mismatched components, missing knockouts, and directories that haven’t been accurate since the 1980s. Any of these are reasons to replace regardless of the label on the door.
Not every capacity problem calls for a new main panel. A subpanel fed from the existing service is often the cleaner and less expensive solution, particularly when the issue is physical space rather than available amperage.
Subpanels make sense in a few common situations: a finished basement or attic conversion that needs its own circuits, a garage or shop where a cluster of new circuits is easier to feed locally than to run individually back to the main panel, an ADU or converted space that benefits from its own distribution, and detached structures where a single feeder to a subpanel replaces multiple long runs.
Detached buildings have their own requirements. A feeder to a separate structure needs correct conductor sizing for the distance, a disconnecting means at the structure, and its own grounding electrode system — a common thing to find missing on garage subpanels installed informally over the years.
If an ADU is in the picture, the panel conversation should happen early. Whether the unit gets its own service, its own meter, or a subpanel from the main affects the design and the cost, and it’s much easier to plan than to retrofit.
A panel upgrade is the natural moment to correct grounding and bonding, and in older homes it’s often necessary rather than optional. Requirements have changed considerably since these systems were installed, and what was acceptable decades ago frequently isn’t now — a single ground rod where two are required, a bonding path interrupted by a plastic section of water line, or neutrals and grounds sharing a bar in a subpanel where they must be separated.
Modern protective devices come into the conversation as well. Arc-fault protection is required on most living-area circuits in new work and is designed to detect the arcing that damaged wiring produces before it starts a fire. Ground-fault protection is required in kitchens, bathrooms, laundry areas, garages, basements, and outdoors. How much of this a panel replacement triggers on existing circuits depends on the jurisdiction and on what’s being altered, and it’s something we confirm for your address rather than assume.
Where these devices do get installed in older homes, they sometimes reveal pre-existing wiring problems that were invisible before. That’s inconvenient, but finding those faults is exactly what the protection exists to do. We’ll tell you at the assessment if we expect that on your house, so it isn’t a surprise mid-project. Older homes with original wiring are the most likely candidates.
Carroll Electric also handles panel and service work for commercial spaces, rental properties, and multi-unit buildings across Seattle, the north end, and the Eastside. Commercial and multifamily projects involve larger services, three-phase equipment, meter stacks and house panels, and work that has to be scheduled around tenants, business hours, and occupancy.
The planning matters more at this scale. A building adding EV charging, converting to electric heat, or taking on a new tenant with real electrical demand needs its service evaluated before commitments are made, and phasing the work often makes more sense than a single shutdown.
Property managers and building owners receive the same process as every other client: an on-site assessment, an itemized written estimate before work begins, and code-compliant installations with permit and inspection records for your files. For owners managing several properties, we’re set up to be a consistent long-term partner rather than a one-time vendor.
Published, not quoted on the doorstep. Builders and repeat clients pay less because the work is easier to plan — you’ll see exactly which rate applies to you before we start.
Residential
Builder / Contractor
$100/hr
Repeat Client
$110/hr
First Time
$125/hr
Emergency
$125–$250/hr
Commercial
Builder / Contractor
$125/hr
Repeat Client
$150/hr
First Time
$175/hr
Emergency
$150–$300/hr
Trip Fee One low trip fee. No surprises.
Within 10 miles
$50
Within 20 miles
$75
20+ miles
$100+
A low number is easy to say. These are the commitments that come attached to it, on every service upgrade and panel swap we do.
Your power is out for a maximum of six hours on the day of the swap. We plan the shutdown around your schedule.
We meet the inspector ourselves and clear the permit within five business days of finishing.
Any additional install or relocation the upgrade makes necessary is done free of charge. Not billed as a change order.
Bring us a written quote and we will meet it at minimum. In most cases we come in 25 to 50 percent lower.
Bonus
A free small install or troubleshoot with every upgrade.
A new light fixture, dimmers, outlets, or a fault you have been meaning to chase down — while we are already on site.
We’d rather explain pricing than have you ask for it. Rewire costs come down to a few specific variables: the size of the home, how much active knob and tube remains, how accessible the framing is through attics and crawlspaces, the amount of plaster or finished surface that has to be opened, whether panel or service work is needed, and how many new circuits current code requires for the way you use the house.
Your estimate breaks those out in plain terms, with labor and materials listed separately, so you can see how the number was reached. When a service upgrade is part of the conversation, it’s priced as its own line rather than folded in. Nothing appears on the final invoice that wasn’t in the estimate.
Washington requires a permit and an inspection for essentially all new and altered electrical work, and panel and service changes are among the most closely inspected work an electrician does. Which office issues the permit depends on where the property is. Seattle runs its own electrical permitting and inspection program through the Department of Construction and Inspections, and the work is held to the Seattle Electrical Code — the city’s own amended edition of the National Electrical Code. Outside cities that operate their own programs, permitting and inspection are handled by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. We work in both systems regularly and pull the permit from whichever authority governs your address.
Handling the permit isn’t a convenience we offer — it’s the law. When you hire an electrical contractor in Washington, that contractor is required to purchase the permit for the work they perform on your property. If someone offers to swap your panel without one, that’s a signal worth paying attention to.
Panel work adds a second layer: the utility. A service upgrade requires the power to be disconnected and reconnected by the utility serving your address, and that scheduling — not the electrical work — usually shapes the project timeline. We coordinate it and sequence the inspection so the reconnect can happen as soon as the utility is able.
The permit record also outlives the project. Panel and service work is among the first things a home inspector examines, and unpermitted work at the service is a reliable way to complicate a sale.
Call or text us at (206) 914-3243 to talk through your electrical service.
Homeowners with a full panel, a fuse box, or a panel that trips more than it should. Anyone adding an EV charger, heat pump, mini-split, hot tub, or shop equipment and running out of capacity. Homeowners planning a remodel, an addition, or an ADU. Buyers whose inspection report flagged the panel, and sellers preparing a property for market. Owners of homes with Federal Pacific, Zinsco, or Challenger panels. Builders and general contractors coordinating service on new construction. Property managers and commercial owners upgrading aging equipment. And anyone whose insurer has asked questions about their panel.
Call or text us at (206) 914-3243 to talk through your electrical service.
Carroll Electric is a licensed electrical contractor serving Seattle, the north end, and the Eastside. We’re a small, hands-on family crew, and the person who assesses your panel is typically the person on site doing the work. You receive an itemized estimate before anything begins, we size the service to what the property actually needs rather than to the largest number we can sell, we handle the permit and the utility coordination, we install to code the first time, and we leave you with a panel that’s labeled clearly enough to be useful ten years from now. Our focus is on giving you the information to make a confident decision — not on selling you more than you need.
Call or text us at (206) 914-3243 to talk through your electrical service.
“Highly recommend Carroll Electric! Cameron provided outstanding service from start to finish. His pricing was incredibly reasonable, and he managed the entire project seamlessly — including coordinating directly with the inspector to ensure everything went smoothly. The work was completed exactly on time, and the quality is top-notch.”
Niket A. ★★★★★
And surrounding areas throughout King and south Snohomish Counties.
Whether it’s a failed meter base or a full electrical service upgrade with utility coordination, Carroll Electric has the licensing and experience to complete the work correctly. Contact us to schedule an assessment.
Every project follows the same process, from first contact through follow-up.
It starts with an on-site assessment. We look at your existing panel and service size, the condition of the meter base and service entrance, how much capacity is actually committed versus available, the condition of the branch circuits landing in the panel, and what you’re planning to add. We run a load calculation rather than estimating, because the difference between needing a panel swap and needing a full service upgrade is a real difference in cost and scope. From that assessment you receive a written, itemized estimate separating labor and materials, before you approve anything.
Once the work is scheduled, we handle the permit and coordinate the utility disconnect and reconnect, which is the part that shapes your timeline more than the electrical work does. On the day, we set the new panel, transfer and land every circuit, replace breakers as needed, install required protection, bond and ground the system correctly, and label every circuit clearly — a legible directory is one of the most useful things a panel upgrade leaves behind, and one of the most commonly skipped.
We protect finished surfaces and clean up the work area. Every project closes with a walkthrough of the new panel and directory, documentation of the completed work, permit and inspection records, and an invoice that matches the estimate.
If your project already has a set of plans, we’ll build you a custom electrical layout at no charge.
It’s a marked-up floor plan showing exactly where everything goes — light boxes, wafer lights, switches and 3-way switches, bath fans, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, outlets, countertop circuits, and the sub panel location — color-coded with a legend, dimensioned, and readable by someone who doesn’t do this for a living.
See real project examples and our straightforward hourly rates.
King County:
Seattle (98115, 98082, 98125, 98165, 98105, 98175, 98195, 98112, 98103, 98113, 98122, 98109, 98117, 98127, 98139, 98141, 98194, 98107, 98101, 98119, 98111, 98170, 98181, 98185, 98190, 98191, 98164, 98161, 98154, 98104, 98121, 98174, 98160, 98199, 98134, 98118, 98108, 98116, 98106, 98126, 98136, 98178, 98168, 98131, 98199, 98141, 98181, 98170, 98145, 98138, 98129, 98124
Bellevue (98004, 98005, 98009, 98015, 98007, 98008, 98006), Bothell (98034, 98011, 98041, 98021, 98012), Mercer Island (98040, 98118), Newcastle (98056, 98059), Issaquah (98029, 98027, 98075), Kenmore (98028, 98125, 98155), Kirkland (98034, 98033, 98133, 98102, 98114, 98124, 98129, 98138, 98145, 98144, 98083), Lake Forest Park (98155), Medina (98039, 98039), Redmond (98052, 98073, 98053, 98008, 98033), Renton (98056, 98059, 98055, 98057, 98058, 98178), Richmond Beach (98177), Sammamish (98074, 98075, 98008, 98029), Shoreline (98155, 98133, 98177, 98160), Woodinville (98072, 98077)
Snohomish County:
Bothell (98034, 98011, 98041, 98021, 98012), Edmonds (98020, 98006, 98026), Everett (98208, 98204, 98208, 98203, 98213, 98201, 98207, 98275, 98203, 98290, 98206, 98272), Lynnwood (98036, 98046, 98037, 98087, 98037), Mill Creek (98012, 98082), Mountlake Terrace (98043, 98043), Mukilteo (98275), Snohomish (98296, 98291, 98290)
Seattle Neighborhoods:
North Seattle: Ballard (98107, 98117), Broadview (98177. 98133), Bitter Lake (98133), Blue Ridge (98177, 98133), Bryant (98223), Crown Hill (98117), Fremont (98103, 98107), Green Lake (98103, 98115), Greenwood (98103, 98117, 98133), Hawthorne Hills (98105, 98115), Lake Union (98109), Laurelhurst (98105), North Beach (98117), North College Park (98103), Northgate (98125, 98133), Northlake (98103), Phinney Ridge (98103, 98107, 98117), Ravenna (98105, 98115), Roosevelt (98115), Sand Point (98115, 98105), University District (98105, 98115, 98195), University Village (98105), Wallingford (98103), Wedgwood (98115), Windermere (98105, 98115), View Ridge (98115)
Northgate: Haller Lake (98133, 98125), Lake City (98125, 98115), Maple Leaf (98115), Pinehurst (98125)
Lake City: Cedar Park (98125), Matthews Beach (98115, 98125), Meadowbrook (98125m 98115, 98155), Olympic Hills (98125), Victory Heights (98125, 98115)
Ballard: Adams (98107), Loyal Heights (98117), Sunset Hill (98117, 98107), West Woodland (98107), Whittier Heights (98117)
Central Seattle: Cascade (98109), Capitol Hill (98102, 98112, 98122), Eastlake (98102), Interbay (98119, 98199), Lake Union (98109, 98102, 98103), Queen Anne (98109, 98119), Westlake (98109)
Magnolia: Briarcliff (98199), Lawton Park (98199), Southeast Magnolia (98199)
Capitol Hill: Broadmoor (98112), Broadway (98122, 98102), Interlaken (98112), Madison Park (98112), Madison Valley (98112, 98122), Montlake (98112), Pike-Pine Corridor (98122, 98101), Portage Bay (98102, 98105), Roanoke (98102, 98112), Renton Hill (98057), Stevens (98112)
Central Seattle: Atlantic (98144, 98134), Central Area (98122, 98144), Central District (98122, 98144), Cherry Hill (98122), Denny-Blaine (98112), Downtown (98101, 98104, 98113, 98121, 98141, 98154, 98161, 98165, 98170, 98174, 98175, 98181, 98185, 98190, 98191, 98194), , Judkins Park (98144, 98122), Leschi (98122, 98144), Madrona (98122), Mann (98122), Minor (98122, 98144), Squire Park (98122, 98144), Washington Park (98112)
Downtown Seattle: Belltown (98121, 98101, 98109), Central Business District (98101, 98104, 98164, 98121, 98154), Central Waterfront (98101, 98104, 98121, 98134), Chinatown-International District (98104), Denny Triangle (98101), First Hill (98104, 98122, 98101), Pike-Market (98101), Pioneer Square (98104, 98134), West Edge (98101), Yesler Terrace (98104, 98122)
South End: Atlantic City Beach (98118), Brighton (98118), Beacon Hill (98108, 9811, 98144), Columbia City (98118, 98108), Dunlap (98118), Georgetown (98108), Harbor Island (98134), Hillman City (98118), Holly Park (98118), Industrial District (98134, 98108), Lakerridge (98178), Lakewood (98144), Mount Baker (98144), New Holly (98118, 98108), Othello (99344, 99327, 99332), Rainier Beach (98118, 98178), Rainier Valley (98118), Rainier View (98178), Seward Park (98118), SoDo (98134), South Park (98108), Van Asselt (98108)
West Seattle: Admiral District (98116, 98126), Alaska Junction (98116, 98126, 98136), Alki Point (98116), Arbor Heights (98146, 98126, 98136), Delridge (98106, 98126), Fairmount Park (9811, 98126, 98136), Fauntleroy (98136, 98116, 98126), Gatewood (98136), Genesee (98116, 98126), Mee-Kwa-Mooks (98116), North Admiral (98116), North Delridge (98106. 98126), Seaview (98136), West Seattle Junction (98116)
Delridge: High Point (98126, 98106), Highland Park (98106, 98108), Riverview (98106), Roxhill (98126, 98106), South Delridge (98126, 98106)
Most electricians won’t give you a number until someone is standing in your space, and there’s a reason for that — an honest price depends on what’s actually there. But that’s not much help when you’re trying to budget. So here are real quotes from recent work instead.
Look at what’s in them. Rough-in and trim-stage work priced separately, so you can see the two halves of the job. Every item listed individually, so if you add something, remove something, or change your mind, the number moves by a specific amount instead of becoming a conversation. And where existing circuits are safe and serviceable, they’re listed by name — the work we’re not charging you to redo, written down where you can check it.
That’s what a calculated price looks like. Nothing padded to cover a worst case, nothing priced low to get in the door. When you can see how a number was built, you can tell whether it’s fair.
Tap any quote to read it full screen
Your project will differ, and the assessment is what produces an accurate number — but this is how we build one.
Cost depends on whether the job is a panel swap or a full service upgrade, the service size, the condition and location of the existing panel and meter base, whether the service is overhead or underground, and what the utility requires. We provide an itemized written estimate after an on-site assessment, with labor and materials broken out separately. Call or text (206) 914-3243 to schedule an assessment.
A panel swap replaces the panel while keeping your existing service size, and is the right job when capacity is adequate but the panel is obsolete, full, or damaged. A service upgrade increases the capacity coming into the building — commonly from 60 or 100 amps to 200 — and involves the meter, service entrance, grounding, and utility coordination. They’re different projects at different prices, and the assessment determines which you need.
It depends on the scope, the condition of what’s already there, and the utility’s availability for the disconnect and reconnect — that last piece often shapes the schedule more than the electrical work does. We’ll walk you through the expected sequence and the outage window at the assessment, and we’ll tell you as soon as we know if anything shifts.
Yes. Panel and service work requires a permit and inspection. Inside Seattle, the permit comes from the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections; in jurisdictions without their own program, it comes from the Department of Labor & Industries. Carroll Electric pulls the permit and schedules the inspection as part of the project, which is what state law requires of the contractor doing the work.
It depends on the loads, not the square footage. A home with gas heat, gas water heating, and gas cooking may be comfortable at 100 amps. Add electric heat, a heat pump, an EV charger, or a shop and the calculation changes quickly. We run a load calculation and give you the number rather than defaulting to the largest service available.
Generally yes. These lines have documented concerns about breakers failing to trip under fault conditions, replacement parts are scarce, home inspectors flag them routinely, and some insurers decline or surcharge coverage. Replacement is usually the right call even when nothing has visibly failed.
Often, yes. If the service has available capacity and the panel is only out of physical spaces, a subpanel or a panel with more spaces solves the problem without touching the utility connection. That’s a considerably smaller project, and it’s worth checking before assuming a full upgrade.
Not always. Many homes have adequate capacity, and where they don’t, a smaller charger or a load management device can sometimes avoid an upgrade entirely. Older homes still on 100-amp service are the most likely to need one. We run the load calculation before you order equipment, not after.
It depends on why they’re tripping. If the cause is an overloaded or undersized service, yes. If the cause is a fault on a specific circuit, a failing breaker, or a wiring problem, a new panel alone won’t resolve it — and newer protective devices may reveal issues in the existing wiring. We diagnose the cause before recommending a replacement.
Sometimes. A panel upgrade doesn’t change what’s behind the walls, and in older homes new protective devices can surface pre-existing branch circuit problems. If we expect that during the assessment, we’ll tell you upfront so it isn’t a surprise mid-project.
Carroll Electric provides electrical service and meter upgrades to homeowners, contractors, and businesses throughout Seattle, Shoreline, Bothell, Lynnwood, Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, and surrounding communities across King and south Snohomish Counties.
Our approach to every project is the same: the right scope, sized correctly, installed to code, labeled clearly, cleaned up, and documented for your records. We’re a small family crew, so you’re working with the people doing the work rather than being handed between a salesperson, a scheduler, and whoever is available. That’s what stands behind two brothers, one mission — do the job right, at the right price.
Reach out today to schedule your appointment.
