Who Does What in a Phoenix Service Upgrade: You, Us, the City and the Utility

You

You choose the contractor, sign the scope, and provide access. If the panel is behind a locked gate, a stack of storage or an unhappy dog, that has to be sorted before the day of the work. You will also be without power for part of a day, so plan for pets, medical equipment, refrigeration and anyone working from home.

Us, the licensed contractor

We do the load calculation, size the service, pull the electrical permit under our license, order and stage the equipment, coordinate the utility disconnect and reconnect, perform the work, and meet the inspector. If the inspector wants something changed, correcting it is on us. Anyone offering to do a service upgrade without a permit is offering you a problem to discover later, usually when you sell the house.

The jurisdiction

The city or town where your house sits — Phoenix, Scottsdale, Glendale, Tempe, Mesa and the rest each run their own building department — issues the permit and sends the inspector. Requirements and turnaround times genuinely differ between jurisdictions, which is why we would rather tell you “we will confirm with your building department” than promise you something that is true one city over. Permit fees are typically passed through to you.

The utility

Your electric utility owns the meter and the service drop or lateral feeding it. They disconnect so we can work, and they reconnect and re-energize after the inspection clears. Their scheduling is the part of this process nobody controls, and it is the single most common cause of delay on an otherwise simple job. We book it as early as we can and keep you posted honestly rather than guessing at a date.

The realistic sequence

• Site visit, load calculation, written estimate
• Permit application
• Utility disconnect scheduled
• Work day: old service out, new meter and panel in, circuits re-terminated and labelled
• Inspection
• Utility reconnect and final energization
• You get the paperwork, and a panel you can actually read

What to ask any contractor before you sign

• What is your ROC license number, and is it active and in the right classification?
• Are you pulling the permit under your license?
• How long will my power be off, and on what day?
• Who coordinates with the utility?
• Is the emergency service disconnect included where required?
• What happens to the price if you open the wall and find something unexpected?

B and D Electric holds Arizona ROC 361086 and carries $1M/$2M general liability. You can verify any Arizona contractor's license status yourself on the ROC website, and you should.