A heavy up is an upgrade to the service coming into your house; in addition, it increases the size of your panel allowing the addition of circuits to be put in. You need a heavy up when one or more of the following things occur, you have no more room in your panel to add or change circuitry, you can not add a new appliance or device because requires more amperage than what you currently have available in your panel, your circuits keep tripping due to an overloaded circuit and there is no more room in the panel to move items around and/or you are planning to perform an addition, remodel or renovation that will require the home to have a higher service line coming in.

We find that a lot of our customers have questions regarding the correct process for a heavy to occur. The heavy up process consists of quite a few steps and below are the steps and time frame for the items to occur.

Step One: Contact an Electrician

• Analysis of problems to make sure a heavy up is the correct way to repair the problems.
• Estimate

Step Two: Acceptance of Estimate
Once the estimate is accepted by you the electrical contractor will perform the remaining steps.

Step Three: Electrical Contractor Pulls Electrical Permit
It is extremely important to have a permit for heavy ups; this allows the county to inspect the work to make sure it was done correctly and safely. In addition, the county will pass on the results to the power company, this give the power company the information they need to proceed.

Step Four: Heavy Up Performed
A qualified electrician will perform the heavy up which take approximately 8 hours and may require a technician helper or apprentice for assistance.
Power will have to be shut off to the home for approximately 4 out of those 8 hours.

Step Five: Inspection by the County
An inspector from the county in which the permit was pulled will come to the residence and inspect the work and either pass or fail it. If the inspection fails, the original electrician will need to come back and repair the problems and then call for a re-inspection. If it passes you go to step 6.

Step Six: County Sends Information to Power Company
The county will send the passing inspection results to the power company. This is the power company’s okay to proceed with final connections.

Step Seven: Electrical Contractors Sends Notification to Power Company
The electrical contractor, once the inspection passes, also sends what is called a cut in card to the power company letting them know that a heavy up was performed and inspections passed.

Step Eight: Power Company Issues Work Request and Performs a Site Check
The power company will give your job a number; this is used to identify the job. A site check is done by the power company to get the information needed to complete the connections and yet again make sure everything is in place to make the final connections.

Step Nine: Power Company Makes Final Connections
The power company will come out and make the final connection to the meter at your residence.

YOU’RE DONE!

The first few steps of the heavy up depend on you and your contractor, with our customers we can estimate, perform and complete steps 1-7, along with step 8, within three days. On average it takes about 1 week for the county to get inspection results to the power company. Once the contractor and county have sent notification to the power company, it is up to the power company to get out to the job in a timely fashion. We notify our customers than on average Pepco takes 2-4 months and Allegany takes 1-2 weeks. Unfortunately, after the inspection has passed the remaining work is out of the electrical contractors control and is up to the power company to complete, as it is against the law for the electrical contractor to make the final connections, unless approved by the power company through a sub-contractors agreement.

If you have any further questions about the heavy up process please feel free to contact our offices and speak with a customer care representative or estimator, they will be glad to assist you.