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Comment by Xavdidtheshadow | Hacker News Reader

> it requires some adjustments, but really not much

can you be more specific here? What sort of things would other readers interested in electrifying a house not be considering?

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Sibling comment about electric loads is accurate - we had 100amp service which was insufficient (though we almost made it - we added an ADU (also all electric) which needed it's own big breaker and we didn't have space for that - so that's what really put us over. I ended up going a bit crazy and installing 400A service because it wasn't that much more that 200. Cost was about $11k. We also redid most of the electric wiring in our house as part of renovations.

What I had in mind with the comment above though is that it's just a shift in mindset. In the past I had no idea what a 'therm' of gas was, or how much that was, or any way to connect "run the heater for an hour" to a unit of energy or cost. With everything electric, and everything monitored in detail, and production of electricity on the roof, now everything in the house is on the same unit of energy which I can at least wrap my head around. I can connect "run the heater for an hour (3.5kwh)" to "2 hours of shaded solar power" or "a whole day of hot water" or "a 10 mile trip to the shops in the car". With data comes awareness, and with awareness its inevitable that you'll shift your behavior to be more efficient.

- Does your house have the proper infrastructure (e.g. 200amp+ panel)

- Is your house wired for the load? (e.g. you need bigger wires to handle the higher amperage. Walls might need to be taken down in order to rewire the appliances)

Those are the two biggest issues. Depending on your house layout, you might basically need to gut your entire house just to rewire a single appliance. I'm obviously throwing out a catastrophic example here, but it can happen. This sort of thing is best done if you're doing major renovations anyway.

Not the op, but I recently added a 50amp circuit for an oven to my ‘50s era house (currently gas). There was a crawl space behind the kitchen, which was not insulated. The hardest part was getting the conduit measured, bent and attached to the house to go from the electrical panel to the attic. Then I drilled holes in the studs for the wire and fished it through and insulated the wall.

Worst case, you have an insulated wall that you need to tear apart. For pre ‘78 houses, do a lead and asbestos inspection before starting work. You would have to tear down drywall/rocklath, tear out insulation, cut holes in the studs for wires, put up new insulation, new drywall, and mud/paint the walls. You could do that in a weekend assuming you have the materials and tools starting Saturday morning.

Looking forward to a reply by op because I suspect their house is above 200amps because of the appliances and cars they have.

OP here - we upgraded to 400 amp service, but 200 would still be sufficient for us. I just have a hard time saying no when 'overkill' costs only 10% more.

> Depending on your house layout, you might basically need to gut your entire house just to rewire a single appliance.

This is simply not true. Any decent electrician will be able to fish the lines with a few strategically placed small holes.

There's no way you can say this without seeing the house, existence of a crawlspace, etc. Low gauge wires are thick, stiff and notoriously difficult to snake.

I do agree though that the average house would not require gutting to wire an appliance.

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