Salt Lake County, Utah — call 801-644-9000.
Larger homes in Sandy tend to gain equipment gradually rather than all at once. A hot tub goes in one summer, a garage becomes a woodshop the next, then a heat pump replaces the old system and someone finishes the basement with a second kitchen down there. None of those decisions feels dramatic on its own. Together they can outgrow a service that was sized for the house as originally drawn, and the symptoms usually arrive quietly.
You might notice lights dimming when the well pump or the compressor starts, breakers that trip only when two demanding things run at the same moment, or a panel with no empty spaces left in it. Those are capacity signals rather than quirks to work around. Before you buy equipment, it is worth knowing what your service can carry, because the answer sometimes changes which model you should order in the first place.
A load calculation is the arithmetic that turns guesswork into a plan you can act on. An electrician inventories the fixed appliances, the heating and cooling equipment, and any large motors, applies the standard demand factors, and compares that total against what your service actually delivers. It takes a site visit and a conversation about how your household lives, not a glance at the panel cover from the end of the driveway.
The result is genuinely useful beyond the immediate question. It tells you whether the load you want to add fits today, fits with a few adjustments, or truly requires a larger service. It also gives you a document you can hand a contractor or an appraiser later on. Ask for the calculation in writing before anyone quotes a service upgrade, and be cautious of a recommendation that arrives without one behind it.
Running short on capacity does not always mean tearing out the service and starting over. A subpanel placed near the shop or the mechanical room can add circuit space and shorten long conductor runs at the same time. Load management devices allow certain equipment to share available capacity intelligently instead of demanding all of it at once. Retiring abandoned circuits and consolidating what remains sometimes frees more room than owners expect it will.
When an upgrade genuinely is the right move, the scope should be spelled out plainly in writing: the panel and breakers, the service entrance work, coordination with the utility, and the inspection that follows afterward. Most jurisdictions require a permit for panel and service changes, and your city's building department can confirm the process for your address. Call 801-644-9000 to talk through the loads you are planning to add this year.
Sometimes. A subpanel adds circuit space, but it draws from the same service, so it solves a shortage of breaker slots rather than a shortage of capacity. If the load calculation shows you have headroom and simply nowhere to land new circuits, a subpanel is often the practical answer.
Generally yes. Equipment with motors, heaters, or steady high draw is normally fed by its own circuit sized to the manufacturer's requirements, with the disconnecting means and protection the installation calls for. Sharing one circuit between two demanding loads invites nuisance tripping and makes future troubleshooting harder than it needs to be.
A slight flicker as a large motor starts can be normal, but a pronounced or worsening dip deserves attention. It can point to a loose connection, an undersized conductor, or a service working close to its limit. An electrician can measure voltage drop under load and tell you which explanation actually fits.
A dead outlet, a breaker that will not stay set, lights that dim when the furnace kicks on. Each points somewhere specific. The work is tracing the circuit back to the loose connection, failed device, or overload behind it.
Learn more →Older houses were wired for a smaller electrical life than the one you are living. When a panel is full, obsolete, or undersized for what you keep adding, an upgrade replaces the service equipment and gives every circuit somewhere to go.
Learn more →A home charger is a large, continuous load, so the real question is never the charger. It is whether your panel has capacity and how far the run travels from panel to parking spot. Both get answered before anything is mounted.
Learn more →Get the fault traced properly. There is no fee to be matched with an electrician.
Call 801-644-9000A few details about what is happening and when is enough to point you in the right direction.