Farm service drops & main panels.

What this job is

A "service drop" in colloquial usage is everything from the utility transformer to your main panel: the wires from the pole, the meter base on your wall, the riser conduit, the disconnect, the main panel, and the ground-rod system. We do all of it as one job. We coordinate the utility-side work with whichever co-op or company serves you — Green Mountain Power, Washington Electric Cooperative, or Vermont Electric Cooperative in our service area.

The most common reason to do this job is the existing service is older than the load it has to carry. A 100A panel installed in 1972 was sized for a house with one freezer, an electric range, and an oil furnace. The same house in 2026 has heat-pump water heater, EV charger, induction range, and a sugarhouse for the kid's 4-H project. The breaker math doesn't work; the meter math doesn't work; and the conductors from the pole are aluminum and undersized. Replacing the panel without replacing the service is a band-aid, and we'd rather not.

The four service sizes we install

200A residential

The standard for a Vermont farmhouse with up to about 14 kW of continuous load. Includes a 200A meter base, a 200A breaker panel with 30–40 spaces, two ground rods 6 ft apart per NEC 250.53, and a complete bonding jumper system.

320A residential ("400A class")

A meter-and-main combo with two 200A main breakers, total ampacity 320 continuous. The right size for a working farmhouse with a heat pump, an EV, and a small barn. Two #4/0 SE cables to two 200A panels.

400A agricultural (single-phase)

For a small dairy or sugarhouse, single-phase 240 V at 400 A. Either a single 400A panel or a 400A main with split sub-panels for house and barn. CTs in the meter base if the utility requires it.

600A agricultural (three-phase)

For a working dairy with a vacuum pump, an RO unit, and a free-stall ventilation fan bank. 240/120 or 208/120 three-phase from the utility transformer. Wiring per NEC 547.

What's included

• Site visit and load calculation per NEC Article 220, signed and filed.
• Coordination with the utility on the drop point, drop height, and clearance per NESC.
• Permit pulled at the VT Division of Fire Safety; inspection scheduled.
• Meter base, riser conduit, weatherhead, threaded fittings.
• Service entrance conductors (SE cable or single-conductor in conduit, sized per NEC table 310.16).
• Main breaker panel, fully bonded.
• Two 8-foot copper-clad ground rods, #6 grounding electrode conductor, irreversible compression connections.
• Existing-circuit re-feed: every breaker on the old panel either restored to the new panel or marked dead with the customer's signoff.
• Type-1 SPD at the service entrance (standard inclusion since 2023).
• Inspection day on site, walkthrough of the new panel with the customer.

What's not included

• Repair of pre-existing branch-circuit defects discovered during the changeout. Quoted as a separate J-08 line item.
• Trenching for an underground service. Quoted by the linear foot if the utility allows underground.
• Engineering stamps for services > 600A or for any service with on-site generation. Subcontracted to a Vermont-licensed PE; passed through at cost.
• Tree clearing under the drop. Customer's responsibility, or contracted to Davey Tree or a local arborist.

Price band

Service size	Typical low	Typical median	Typical high
200A residential	$2,800	$4,200	$6,500
320A residential	$4,500	$6,800	$9,800
400A agricultural	$6,800	$9,500	$14,200
600A 3-phase	$11,000	$16,500	$23,800

Bands include labor, materials, permit fee, the SPD, and round-trip travel inside the 40-mile radius. They exclude utility-side work (their crew, their charge), engineering stamp where required, and any branch-circuit remediation that turns up. The high end of the band is the case where the existing panel is in a basement under three structural-cavity layers and re-feed of existing circuits costs an extra day.

Standard timeline

1. Day 0: phone call, scheduled site visit.
2. Day 1–4: site visit, load calc, quote returned.
3. Day 5–14: permit application, utility coordination on drop date.
4. Day 14–18: material staging in our shop; the meter base, panel, and conduit get pre-fitted on the bench.
5. Day 19: install day. Power down at the existing service mid-morning; new system energized by mid-afternoon. The customer is without power for typically 4 to 6 hours, so we coordinate around milking schedules and freezers.
6. Day 19 or 20: inspection.

For an emergency service replacement (storm damage, vehicular impact on the mast), we can usually power-restore on a temporary same day; a permanent install follows within two weeks.

Why we're sticky on grounding

The most common defect we find on inspection-tagged services is grounding-electrode-system shortcuts. Two ground rods 6 ft apart, sized #6 minimum, with irreversible compression connections, bonded to the metal water service if metallic — this is the floor. We exceed it where the soil resistivity is high (a lot of the Northeast Kingdom is granite and acid soil). On those farms we'll add a third rod or convert to a Ufer-style concrete-encased electrode if there's a footing pour available.

Why we care: every other safety system in the building — GFCI, AFCI, equipotential planes, lightning protection — assumes a low-impedance earth reference. If the earth reference is bad, the safety systems are degraded silently.

Related work

A J-01 service replacement frequently surfaces a J-04 (knob-and-tube remediation) on the next call, and almost always pairs with a J-06 (lightning protection & surge mitigation) within a year. If the farm is dairy or sugaring, a J-02 or J-03 follows the J-01 on a multi-year project plan. See the Greensboro Bend dairy panel rebuild for a worked example.