Electrician Questions

Short: James at Bruno Electric or Moe at Electrician Techs — anyone have experiences good or bad to share with me? Both had reasonable quotes and were easy enough to work with on the quote part of things. Just looking for personal experiences beyond Yelp reviews.

Longer: We are about to close on a 2-unit property (which is landmarked) that needs its electric updated. We plan to live in the duplex and rent the top floor apartment, as the current owners do. We are new whole-building owners, and I’m a bit overwhelmed by the various elements involved in the process of upgrading the electric (not to mention everything else that needs work!), and not sure what is truly required as far as permits, regulations, commissions, etc. A few questions that may seem stupid/obvious to people with more experience, but I would be very grateful for any perspective you can provide!

Our situation: we need to upgrade all the electric on the rental apartment for safety & convenience reasons. We also need to upgrade the service to the entire building — to 240volts from 120volts for sa fety and modernization.

Questions:

1) To upgrade the service, the electricians need to pull permits. Does this mean with the city or with ConEd? If with the city, will this have implications for our property taxes? They are currently super low, but is this a situation where the permit would then allow them to raise our property taxes to match the current assessed value of the property, vs. its grandfathered-in status?

2) Do I need to clear the interior electric work with the Landmark Preservations Commission? I was looking at their website, and it seems like literally anything you do you need to clear with them? Is this an accurate read of the requirement? Does everyone with a landmarked building do this, or do most people just complete interior work without notifying the LPC?

Again, thank you for any insight/opinion you can provide!

notfromny

in General Discussion 8 years ago

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BobMarvin | 8 years ago

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I thought it was possible to avoid outside meters in Historic Districts. My understanding (based on an article in our local newsletter several years ago) is that Con Edison is reluctant to do so and will not accept a map showing that a house is in an Historic District, but WILL accept a letter from the LPC stating that the specific address is included.

EJR | 8 years ago

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> @cmu
> You probably mean upgrading the amperage. Personally, I would ignore LPC, it’s all interior.

If it is an amperage upgrade, then I am not sure this is a correct statement. I looked into upgrading my amperage 100amps to 200amps and it required filing permits with ConEd and having ConEd run new lines to my house. Current code is for electrical meters to be installed outside of homes, so an upgraded service would have also required moving my electric meters from the basement to the front of my house. I ended up forgoing the work and rarely have any issues with current power supply. In any event, if the OP is upgrading amperage, it will be hard to get around properly filing since ConEd will need to get involved.

cmu | 8 years ago

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James is great. Used him three times, once for tricky open neutral condition solved quickly, & once for new kitchen/bath wiring, latter came in less than other bids, and James was more flexible too, and personable.

You probably have 240v service installed, have not heard of only 120 for building. You probably mean upgrading the amperage. Personally, I would ignore LPC, it’s all interior.

BobMarvin | 8 years ago

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Regarding LPC permits, any work requiring a DOB permit in an historic district must be cleared by LPC also. If it’s something not visible from outside LPC’s role is merely ministerial.