Short answer: An electrical panel upgrade replaces your home’s main service panel, the gray metal box where all your breakers live, with a new one rated for more power. Most Phoenix homes upgrading today are going from 100-amp to 200-amp service. You likely need one if your breakers trip regularly, your panel is more than 25 years old, you are adding an EV charger or a second AC unit, or your panel is a discontinued brand like Federal Pacific or Zinsco. The work requires a permit and a short power shutoff, and it usually takes most of a day.
Your panel is the one part of your electrical system that every other part depends on. It is also the part almost nobody thinks about until something goes wrong.
Here is what an upgrade actually involves, and how to tell whether your home is due for one.
What an electrical panel upgrade actually is
Your service panel takes the power coming in from the street and splits it into the individual circuits that run through your house. Each of those circuits gets a breaker, and each breaker is sized to shut that circuit off before the wire behind it overheats.
An upgrade means replacing that panel entirely. In most cases it also means replacing the main breaker, the grounding system, and sometimes the service entrance conductors feeding the panel from the meter.
What it is not is simply adding another breaker to your existing panel. If there is space and capacity, adding a circuit is a much smaller job. An upgrade is what you do when the panel itself is the limit.
The capacity is measured in amps. Older Valley homes were commonly built with 100-amp service, and plenty of homes from the 1960s and earlier came with 60 amps. Modern builds are typically 200 amps. That number is the ceiling on how much electricity your home can draw at once.
Signs your home needs one
Some of these are inconvenient. Some of them are genuinely a fire risk.
- Breakers that trip repeatedly, especially on the same circuit or when the AC kicks on
- A panel more than 25 years old. Breakers are mechanical and they wear out
- Fuses instead of breakers. If you are still changing screw-in fuses, the panel predates modern safety standards by decades
- No room left. Every slot is full, or someone has already installed tandem breakers to squeeze more circuits in
- Lights that dim when the AC compressor or a large appliance starts
- A warm panel door, a burning smell, or buzzing coming from the box. Stop reading and call an electrician
- Scorch marks or rust inside the panel
- You are adding load, such as an EV charger, a pool pump, a hot tub, a casita, or a second HVAC system
If you want the longer version of this list with what each symptom actually means, we wrote a whole piece on signs your home needs a panel upgrade.
The panel brands that are their own reason to upgrade
A few panels installed in American homes from the 1950s through the 1980s have documented failure problems, and they show up regularly in Phoenix housing stock from that era.
Federal Pacific Electric Stab-Lok panels have a well-documented history of breakers that fail to trip when they should. A breaker that does not trip is not a minor defect. It is the safety device silently not working.
Zinsco and Sylvania-Zinsco panels have a similar reputation, often involving breakers that fuse to the bus bar and stop responding entirely.
Challenger panels are also frequently flagged for breaker failures.
If you have one of these, insurers sometimes ask about it, and some home sales get held up over it. This is one of the few cases where we would suggest replacing a panel that has not visibly done anything wrong yet.
Not sure what you have? The brand name is usually printed inside the panel door. Send us a photo and we will tell you.
Why Phoenix is harder on panels than most places
Two things stack up here that do not stack up everywhere else.
The heat. A panel mounted on a west-facing exterior wall in Phoenix spends months of the year well above what its components were designed to sit at comfortably. Heat accelerates the aging of the breakers, the bus bar connections, and the terminations. Breakers that were marginal in April start nuisance-tripping in July, and it usually is not because your usage changed.
The cooling load. Air conditioning is the single largest electrical draw in a Valley home, and it runs for a large part of the year. A panel that was adequate for a 1985 house with one modest AC unit is working much harder in a 2026 house with a bigger system, a pool pump, and a car charging in the garage.
Add the fact that a lot of Phoenix and East Valley homes built between 1965 and 1973 have aluminum branch wiring, and you have a housing stock where panel work is genuinely common rather than exotic.
What the process looks like
A straightforward residential panel upgrade usually runs like this.
- Load calculation. A licensed electrician works out what your home actually draws, accounting for HVAC, appliances, and anything you are planning to add. This determines whether 200 amps is right or whether you need more.
- Permit. Panel upgrades are permitted work. Your city building department issues it, and requirements differ between Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler and the rest of the Valley, so your electrician should handle this rather than you.
- Utility coordination. Your power has to be disconnected at the meter while the work happens. In the Phoenix metro that means scheduling with APS or SRP depending on who serves your address.
- The replacement. Old panel out, new panel in, circuits transferred and labeled, grounding and bonding brought up to current standard. Expect to be without power for most of the working day.
- Inspection. A city inspector signs off, and the utility restores service.
Plan for one day without power in the house. If you work from home or have someone who cannot be without cooling, tell your electrician up front so it can be scheduled sensibly. In a Phoenix summer that is not a small detail.
What it costs
Cost depends on the amperage you are moving to, whether the service entrance and meter also need work, how far the panel sits from the meter, and what the inspector wants corrected along the way.
Rather than repeat it here, we broke the numbers down properly in what a panel upgrade costs in Phoenix, including what actually moves the price.
The one thing worth saying here: get the estimate in writing, and make sure it says whether the permit and the utility coordination are included. That is where surprise line items usually hide.
Choosing who does the work
This is permitted, load-bearing safety work on the part of your house that everything else runs through. A few things worth confirming before you sign anything:
- The contractor is licensed and insured, and will tell you the license number without being pushed
- They pull the permit. If someone offers to skip it to save you money, that is a reason to walk away. Unpermitted panel work surfaces later during a home sale or an insurance claim
- They do a load calculation rather than just quoting “200 amps” by default
- There is a written warranty covering both parts and labor
- They will label the new panel clearly. You would be surprised how often this gets skipped
At Gideon Electric we are licensed and insured, we pull the permit, and new panels carry a 10-year warranty. Armando started this company in 2021 and his name is on more than 125 Google reviews, which is a reasonable way to check whether the people showing up actually do good work.
Frequently asked questions
How long does an electrical panel upgrade take?
Most residential upgrades are completed in a single day. Your power will be off for a good portion of it while the utility has the service disconnected. More complex jobs, such as relocating the panel or replacing the service entrance, can run into a second day.
Do I need a permit for a panel upgrade in Phoenix?
Yes. Panel replacement is permitted electrical work everywhere in the Valley, and it gets inspected. Your electrician should pull the permit as part of the job. Be wary of anyone who suggests skipping it.
Should I upgrade to 200 amps or is 100 enough?
It depends on your actual load, which is why the calculation matters. That said, if you are already at 100 amps and you are adding an EV charger, a pool, or a second AC system, 200 amps is usually the sensible answer rather than upgrading again in three years.
Will a panel upgrade stop my breakers from tripping?
Sometimes, but not always. If the tripping is caused by a worn breaker, a corroded connection, or a panel at capacity, then yes. If it is caused by a fault on one specific circuit or by a failing appliance, the panel was not the problem. A good electrician diagnoses which it is before selling you a panel.
Is a Federal Pacific or Zinsco panel really that urgent?
These panels have a documented history of breakers failing to trip under fault conditions, which defeats the point of having them. We would treat replacement as a priority rather than something to watch, and some insurers take an interest in them too.
Can I add an EV charger without upgrading my panel?
Sometimes. It comes down to your available capacity and your panel’s spare slots. A load calculation gives you the answer. If there is headroom, EV charger installation is a much smaller job than a full upgrade.
Get your panel looked at
If your breakers are tripping, your panel is older than your kids, or you just want to know whether it will handle what you are planning to add, we will come out and tell you honestly. Sometimes the answer is that your panel is fine.
Call Gideon Electric at 480-716-3272 or request a free estimate. We are licensed and insured, available 24/7 for electrical emergencies, and we cover Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Tempe, Peoria, Surprise, Goodyear and the rest of the metro.
While you are at it, if the tripping only happens when the air conditioning starts, read why your AC circuit breaker keeps tripping first. That one has a different set of causes, and a few of them are not electrical at all.
Our electrical panel installation and repair team handles everything from a single failed breaker to a full service upgrade.
The Electricians Your Home Will Love.