Your residential electrical panel in Kansas City provides electricity to your whole home. Old breaker boxes can cause flickering lights, blown fuses, and even house fires. Homeowners should never attempt Do-It-Yourself (DIY) electrical work unless they are already certified in the electrical field or are residential electricians. 

If you live in an older home and your wiring has not been replaced in recent years, there’s a strong chance that you need to have your home rewired and your residential electrical panel replaced. Homes built even as recently as the 1980s may have been wired in a way that is not up to today’s standards. Because modern homes use more electricity than ever before, the electrical needs of most homes have grown a tremendous amount in the past ten to fifteen years.

What To Consider When Choosing A New Electrical Panel

First, you must learn the components of your breaker panel. The amperage capacity of your breaker panel is identified by the main breaker, which limits the amount of electricity that flows through it. Bus bars transmit the power through two heavy black wires, through the circuit breakers, and to the circuits.

Before you choose a new residential electrical panel, figure out the amperage capacity for your home. Your new panel should be able to handle more amperage than you need. You also need to calculate the total load for the circuits. Circuit breakers are supposed to operate at 80% capacity, meaning that a breaker rated for 20 amps should only use 16 amps. You will need to find the load of each appliance or device (usually indicated on a sticker) that will be connected to the circuit.

You also need to think about the type of circuit breaker you need. Lighting and receptacles typically use single pole breakers with ratings of 15-20 amps. Major appliances and hot water heaters usually require double pole circuit breakers.

Let JMC Expertly Install Your Residential Electrical Panel In Kansas City

There are many reasons why a homeowner should hire a professional electrician like JMC Electric to replace a residential electrical panel in Kansas City. The electrical panel is the core of your wiring system and its link to the city electrical grid that all of your electricity is drawn from. This makes it extremely dangerous work to attempt without proper training. Even if you aren’t injured while attempting to fix your own wiring, very small mistakes could mean huge problems for your home.

Electricity is extremely complicated and dangerous. An amateur electrical job may cause poor wire connections, overloaded circuits, and faulty grounding, which could be hazardous to the safety of your home and your loved ones. In fact, the National Fire Protection Agency names faulty electrical wiring as the number one cause of house fires in the United States.

All of the electricians at JMC Electric are licensed professionals with extensive technical training, so we can guarantee your satisfaction with all of the work that we provide. We also guarantee that any of the wiring work we provide will be completely up to local codes and standards of the Kansas City area. Contact JMC Electric at (913) 362-2100 or (816) 298-0100 for a free estimate on your residential electrical panel repair or replacement today.