Electrical Panel Upgrades in Shreveport, LA

Why so many Shreveport homes need a panel upgrade

Shreveport's housing stock skews old. Broadmoor and Queensborough are full of 1950s houses that were wired for a window unit and a radio; Highland has homes older than that with panels bolted on somewhere in the fourth or fifth decade of their life. A 100-amp service was plenty then. It is not plenty for central air conditioning, an electric range, an electric dryer, a dishwasher, a microwave, a tankless water heater, and a car in the driveway that wants 40 amps overnight.

The symptoms are consistent: breakers trip when two large loads run together, lights dim noticeably when the AC compressor kicks on, the panel is full with double-tapped breakers and no room left, or the dead front is warm to the touch. Any of those means the service is at or past capacity, and the cheap fixes — swapping in a bigger breaker, adding tandems — make the problem more dangerous, not less.

What a Shreveport panel upgrade actually includes

A proper 200-amp upgrade is more than a new box on the wall. We replace the panel and bus, set a new main breaker, replace the meter base when it is corroded (very common on the Cross Lake side of town), rebuild the mast and weatherhead if the riser is compromised, drive new ground rods and bond to the incoming water line, install the whole-home surge protection now required by NEC 230.67, and re-terminate every branch circuit with proper AFCI and GFCI protection where the code calls for it. You get the permit, the inspection, and a labeled panel directory when we leave.

Federal Pacific, Zinsco, and Pushmatic panels

These three show up constantly in Shreveport homes built between the 1950s and the early 1980s. Federal Pacific Stab-Lok breakers have a documented failure-to-trip rate that no modern breaker comes close to. Zinsco bus bars corrode and can weld a breaker to the panel so it never opens. Pushmatic uses an obsolete mechanism with no thermal reset. If your insurance carrier flagged your panel, or an inspector called it out during a sale, replacing it is a one-day job here.

Planning for a generator or EV charger

If a standby generator or an EV charger is anywhere in your plans, tell us before we order the panel. Setting a panel with a generator interlock or transfer-switch provisions costs very little extra during the upgrade and saves a second service call later. The same goes for leaving physical space and a spare 60-amp two-pole slot for a Level 2 charger.