Home / Panels / Electrical Panel Repair
Electrical Panel Repair
Bus bars and terminations tell you more about a panel’s future than its age does. A panel is the one part of a house every other circuit depends on, so it is the part worth measuring before anyone touches it.
Electrical Panel Repair in O’Fallon and across St. Charles, St. Louis, Lincoln and Warren counties.
Clint Ehman does the work himself. Seventeen years in the trade, Infinity Electric since June 2022.
5.0 from 94 Google reviews · BBB A+ since 2022
What this work actually involves
The load gets calculated against what the house actually runs, not against a rule of thumb. If the existing service carries it, you hear that.
First the reading, then the explanation, then the repair scoped to what was actually found. If that turns out smaller than the job you called about, that is what you are charged for.
Work needing a permit gets one and work needing an inspection is left ready for it. There is no handoff between whoever quotes and whoever fixes, because they are the same person.
When people call about this
- Scorch marks, heat or a smell at the cover
- No room left for a new circuit
- Fuses instead of breakers
- Lights that dim when a large appliance starts
Why people choose Clint for it
The diagnosis and the repair are the same person’s work, which is why the explanation you get is first-hand rather than relayed.
Five point zero from 94 Google reviews, A+ with the BBB since December 2022, and seventeen years in the trade behind it.
Where this is done
Thirty towns across five jurisdictions, worked out of O’Fallon. The housing stock and the inspection process both change as you move across them.
See the full service area, or the rest of our panels & service work.
Sub-panel, service upgrade, or neither
These three get confused constantly and they differ by thousands of dollars. A sub-panel adds places to land circuits and is right when the service carries the load but the box is full. A service upgrade raises what the house can draw and is right when the calculation says the service is genuinely at its limit.
Neither is right when the real problem is one overloaded circuit, which is more common than either. The load calculation is what separates the three, and it happens before anything is quoted.
What a panel directory is worth later
An accurate circuit directory is the cheapest thing in a panel and the one most often missing. Without it, every future visit starts with twenty minutes of somebody switching breakers off and shouting down a hallway, and you pay for those twenty minutes.
Every circuit gets identified and written on the directory as part of the work. It is also one of the first things a municipal inspector looks at, because an unlabeled panel is a hazard to whoever opens it next.
Panels: full, overloaded, or obsolete
Three different problems get called the same thing. A full panel has no space left but adequate service. An overloaded service cannot carry the house. An obsolete panel has a known defect or no available parts. Each has a different and very differently priced answer.
The load calculation and a look at the bus with the cover off decide which one you have. A sub-panel solves the first for a fraction of the third.
Who actually does the work
Clint Ehman does the diagnosis and the repair himself. There is no salesman writing a scope for a technician to execute, and nobody paid on what the visit totals.
Seventeen years in the trade, four of them running his own shop out of O’Fallon, licensed, bonded and insured with workers compensation coverage, 5.0 from 94 Google reviews, and A+ BBB accreditation held since 2022.
What a tripping main actually means
A branch breaker trips to protect its circuit. The main trips to protect the service, which means the whole house asked for more than the service carries at that moment. Those are completely different findings.
A main that trips is a capacity conversation and it needs the load measured under real conditions rather than guessed at. It is also the one symptom where the answer genuinely is sometimes a service upgrade.
“Clint came out installed me a large 200 amp panel put some new dedicated lines in my basement and garage he did great clean work all inspections passed he was thorough and knowledgeable. I will have him back out again.”
Jason Holtzman · Google review
How the visit goes
- The call
You describe what the house is doing and what prompted it: a tripping breaker, an inspector’s note, a planned addition. That shapes what gets measured first.
- The measurement
Load across the service under real conditions, voltage at the main, the condition of every lug and the bus. On an older panel, the breaker brand gets identified, because some have no listed replacement still made.
- The finding
You get the number and what it means. If the service carries what the house asks of it, you hear that, and the conversation becomes a sub-panel or a single circuit instead of a service upgrade.
- The work
Permit where required, utility coordinated for the disconnect, new equipment installed, every circuit identified and labeled, and the site left ready for the inspector.
What the job includes
- A load calculation against what the house actually runs, given to you as a number
- Permit application where the municipality requires one
- New panel, breakers and a legible circuit directory
- Utility coordination for the disconnect and reconnect
- Grounding and bonding brought to current requirements
- The site left ready for inspection, and the inspection attended
What it does not
- Drywall repair beyond the panel opening
- Appliance repair, which is a different trade
- Work on the utility side of the meter, which is the utility’s own
Work that is not electrical gets a referral, not a quote. There is a gallery of finished jobs, and a form if that is easier than calling.
Related panels & service work
Electrical Panel Repair across the metro
Where the house is changes what the work involves. Clint works out of O’Fallon across five jurisdictions, and the same service means different work in each.
St. Charles County
Modern wiring, undersized services. That combination defines most of the work in this county, and it makes the load calculation the deciding document rather than a panel inspection.
St. Louis County
Older stock that has been worked on repeatedly, so a panel here has often been added to three or four times by different hands.
St. Louis City
Much of this stock is two and four family, which means shared services and panels that are rarely labeled accurately.
Thirty towns across five jurisdictions, all on the service areas page.
Questions worth asking first.
Do I need a bigger service, or just more space in the panel?
Those are different problems. A full panel with spare capacity takes a sub-panel or tandem breakers. A panel that is out of capacity takes a service upgrade, and the load calculation tells us which one you have before anything is ordered.
Will the power be off all day?
A panel change means the service is off while the work happens, usually most of a working day. You will be told the window before the day starts, and the utility and inspection timing are arranged around it.
How do I know if my panel brand is a problem?
Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco both have documented failure-to-trip histories and no current listed replacement breaker, so the panel gets replaced rather than repaired. The label on the door identifies it in seconds.
Do you pull permits?
Where the municipality requires one, yes, and the work is left ready for inspection with the panel labeled and junctions accessible. Requirements genuinely differ across this metro, which is why it is established per address rather than assumed.
How long have you been doing this?
Clint has seventeen years in the trade and has been running his own shop out of O’Fallon since 2022.
Get the measurement first.
The reading comes before the number, so you know what you are deciding about. Electrical Panel Repair in O’Fallon and across the metro.
Weekdays 8-5, Fri to 4, Sat 10-3 · or describe it in writing.