Panels & service upgrades

Electrical Panel & Service Upgrades in Bakersfield, CA

Most homes and small commercial buildings in Kern County were wired for a fraction of the load they now carry. Blake's Electrical LLC — a licensed California C-10 contractor, CSLB #1159494 — replaces undersized, obsolete and failing electrical panels across Bakersfield and Kern County, including 100 amp to 200 amp service upgrades, sub-panels, and the permit and utility coordination that goes with them.

Licensed California C-10 Electrical Contractor · CSLB #1159494

Call (661) 677-9900 Request a quote
A residential 200 amp service panel being replaced on a Bakersfield home, the dead front off and the branch circuits labeled and ready to land.

What this covers

  • 100 amp to 200 amp service upgrades
  • Panel replacement and change-outs
  • Replacing recalled and obsolete panels
  • Sub-panels and panel additions
  • Load calculations before an upgrade
  • Meter and service-entrance work
  • Breaker replacement and AFCI/GFCI retrofits
  • Permit and inspection handling
  • Utility coordination for service changes

Signs your panel is due

A panel rarely fails all at once. It gets warm, it gets crowded, and then one day a breaker won't reset. Any of the following is worth a look:

  • Breakers that trip repeatedly, or one that won't stay on
  • A panel that is warm to the touch, buzzes, or smells hot
  • Scorch marks, rust or corrosion inside the enclosure
  • Every slot full, or tandem breakers doubled up to make room
  • Fuses instead of breakers, or a panel older than the wiring around it
  • Lights dimming when a large appliance starts
  • A planned addition — EV charger, HVAC, shop equipment, an ADU — that the panel has no capacity for
A crowded original electrical panel with every breaker slot filled and hand-lettered labels, before replacement.

100 amp vs 200 amp service

A 100 amp service was sized for a house with a furnace, a range and a handful of circuits. It was never sized for central air in a Bakersfield summer plus an EV charging overnight plus a heat-pump water heater plus a shop out back.

200 amp is the practical default for a modern home, and it is the size that keeps its options open — the difference in the cost of the upgrade between 150 and 200 amp is small compared with doing it twice. Whether you need it is a load calculation, not a guess: we add up the actual connected load and the demand factors the code applies, and that number decides the service size.

What a panel upgrade actually involves

A service upgrade is more than swapping a box. Depending on what is there now, the scope can include the service entrance conductors, the meter socket, the mast or lateral, grounding and bonding brought up to current code, and the panel itself.

Grounding and bonding is the part customers never see and inspectors always check. On older Kern County homes it is frequently the largest hidden item in the scope — an old system may have no ground rods, no bonded water line, or a neutral and ground still tied together where they shouldn't be.

  • Load calculation and service sizing
  • Permit application with the authority having jurisdiction
  • Utility coordination and a scheduled power-down
  • New panel, breakers, and a legible circuit directory
  • Service entrance, meter socket and mast work as required
  • Grounding electrodes and bonding brought to current code
  • Inspection, and power restored the same day wherever possible

Recalled and obsolete panels

Some panels are a problem because they are full. Others are a problem because of what they are. Certain older panel lines have a documented history of breakers that fail to trip on an overload — which removes the one safety device the circuit has.

If you have an older panel and you're not sure what it is, send a photo of the label and the dead front. Our Safety Bulletin tracks electrical products under formal CPSC recall, including panel and breaker equipment, with photos to compare against.

Common questions

Related services

EV Charger Installation

Level 2 home chargers and commercial charging stations — panel capacity checked first, circuit sized properly, permitted and inspected.

Read more

Generators & Backup Power

Whole-house and commercial standby generators, automatic transfer switches, and the load sizing, permits and utility coordination behind them.

Read more

Repair & Troubleshooting

Breakers that keep tripping, flickering lights, dead outlets, burning smells — traced to the actual fault and repaired, day or night.

Read more

Need a quote for panel & service upgrades?

Call (661) 677-9900 or send the details and we'll come back to you with a real number. 24/7 emergency service across Bakersfield and Kern County.

Call (661) 677-9900 Request service