Another project that Karla and I wanted to get done before finishing the basement was to upgrade the circuit breaker panel to 200 Amps. A few people thought I was nuts. Why not just add a sub-panel and avoid the extra expense?
There were a couple of reasons I wanted the upgrade. For one thing, the existing 100 Amp circuit breaker panel was full, and I knew I had a lot of electrical wiring in my future in order to finish the basement.
Secondly, since we are finishing the basement, I wanted to "Future-Proof" the house for any futher upgrades to our home. Once the walls go up, it would be A LOT harder to upgrade - not to mention more expensive. And who knows what we might want to add to the house down the road. A home theater, maybe a hot tub, some 220v power tools in the garage...
Also, people always say that 200 Amp service adds value to the house. Well that's fine, but after all the work we're doing the house we BETTER NOT move for a long, long time. However, with resale in mind, the electrician we hired suggested adding a special circuit bypass switch that could be connected to a generator in case of emergency. I thought it sounded cool (even though I don't even own a generator). Just one more thing that I won't want to add later.
The above picture shows the pre-existing 100 Amp 20 space panel on the left, and the new 200 Amp 40 space panel on the right. That outta keep our home pretty well "Future-Proof".
Finally, since I was already talking about electrical work, I want to show a picture of a new light switch/programmable timer that I installed. It's pretty cool. You just wire it in over an existing light switch, and program the times when you want it to turn on and off. It can also be turned on manually by tapping the surface cover.
I put this on our outdoor light switch when we started puting up Christmas decorations. We placed a couple of wreaths over the outside lights on our garage and I thought it would be nice to have the lights show the wreaths off. The problem is that I never remember to turn on and off the outside lights - now I don't have too! As an added bonus, now I can tell the difference between the hall way light, and the outside light.
