Service, Maintenance & Building Systems
Commercial electrical panels, disconnects & meter bases
Commercial panel replacement and upgrades, disconnects and meter equipment in Richardson and North Dallas — capacity reviews, obsolete-equipment evaluation and planned-shutdown installation.
Panels, disconnects and meter equipment are the parts of a building nobody thinks about until a breaker won't stay set, a build-out needs capacity that isn't there, or an inspector flags equipment unsupported for twenty years. We handle panelboard installation and replacement, capacity upgrades, disconnects, meter bases and the coordination around them.
The starting point is always what's installed, what condition it's in, what it's rated for and what the building actually needs now. A remodel, an added production line or a change of occupancy can all push a panel past what it was built to carry, and finding that out before the work starts is cheaper than finding it out after.
Panelboards, disconnects and metering
Panel work covers main and distribution panels, subpanels, feeders, breakers, bus and lugs — whether the job is added capacity, cleaning up an overloaded board, or a like-for-like replacement. Repair makes sense when equipment is sound and correctly rated with parts available; replacement makes sense when the bus or enclosure is damaged, or components are only available as refurbished substitutes.
Disconnect work ranges from equipment disconnects to service disconnecting means. Meter bases sit at the boundary with the utility, which makes them coordination jobs as much as installation jobs — the utility controls its own scheduling and equipment, and we plan around that rather than promise otherwise.
- Main, distribution and subpanel installation and replacement
- Feeders, breakers, bus and lug work
- Fused and non-fused disconnect installation and replacement
- Meter base, socket and metering equipment work
- Utility and AHJ coordination with planned outage sequencing
- Accurate panel schedules and circuit labeling
Obsolete and legacy equipment
Some buildings still run distribution equipment manufacturers stopped supporting long ago — Federal Pacific/FPE, Zinsco, Pushmatic and similar names, but the real category is any equipment where listed replacement breakers are hard to source or the bus and terminations have known failure patterns. Age alone is not the verdict: a well-maintained panel with available parts is a different conversation than one showing damaged bus, overheating, corrosion or undocumented modifications.
The real risk is continuity — when an obsolete breaker fails with no proper replacement available, a routine fault becomes a scramble and extended downtime. Evaluating that exposure while the equipment still runs gives you a planned replacement on your schedule instead of the equipment's.
- Evaluation of discontinued and unsupported equipment
- Bus damage, overheating, corrosion and arcing evidence
- Case-by-case recommendation, not blanket replacement
- Availability of correctly listed replacement components
- Downtime-risk assessment for critical operations
Troubleshooting, shutdowns and documentation
Panel problems get diagnosed with load and voltage readings under real conditions and inspection for heat and damage — a breaker that trips repeatedly is telling you something, and swapping parts without finding out what is how callbacks happen. Because panel work usually requires a shutdown, the outage is planned like a project: window agreed with tenants, gear pre-staged, sequence worked out in advance.
Closeout is documentation — updated panel schedules, corrected labeling and written findings that turn the next issue into a quick repair instead of another investigation.
- Load and voltage readings under operating conditions
- Breaker and connection issue diagnosis
- Planned outage windows with pre-staged equipment
- Updated panel schedules, labeling and written findings
What this typically includes
- Panelboard installation and replacement
- Capacity upgrades and subpanel additions
- Fused and non-fused disconnects
- Meter bases and commercial metering equipment
- Obsolete and legacy equipment evaluation
- Utility and AHJ coordination where applicable
- Shutdown planning and tenant coordination
- Panel schedules, labeling and documentation
Flip the Switch Electric serves Richardson, TX and the surrounding North Dallas area. Tell us what you're working on and we'll give you a straight answer on scope and fit.
Need an electrician who shows up and gets it right?
From a single service call to a full commercial project scope — tell us what's going on and we'll give you a straight answer on what it takes and when we can be there.