I'm asking them for an estimate but I can't get them to do so without a site visit and they are booked solid for a while. I'd like to know what I'm looking at for cost. I have about 1500 feet by my estimate from their main pole. I suspect this is going to be catastrophically expensive given that's going to be 3+ poles set plus transformer plus meter loop pole across the road. Anyone have any experience on how they charge? Their website is lean on actual details.

I have been dealing with a bunch of ECs from the Permian to Houston for a pipeline for the past year. I didn't deal with Hamilton EC however. My rule of thumb for single phase line extension is $10 per foot all in. It is highly variable and I think that the coop usually tries to stick it to the pipeline. Most of my sites have had minimal power draw so they don't give you any credit for the amount of power that you will buy. If you are building a house ask them to give you a credit for the load and they may reduce your construction cost.

Last time I checked, it was $1900 a pole, with a pole every 300 feet

This was Excel in the panhandle

Ouch. I got a ballpark estimate back. They were pleasant enough to deal with but they won't come up the road from the last pole and will have to start a whole new run from the closest main pole which adds two more. $19K to go about 2000 feet so the $10 estimate was spot on. They don't "mark it up" so that's a straight pass through but I guess they don't have their own people and sub it out since it is about 1/2 materials and 1/2 labor.

Ok, so here's a question. When I got my quote, it is right at 17,500 plus taxes of 1500 or 19K total. Hamilton County Coop tells me they do the power work "at cost" with no mark up. That's great but the quote is about 8750 for equipment, poles, wire, transformer, etc. and about 8750 for labor. One of two things has to be true. Either they are charging me labor for employees they already have on staff or they are contracting the work out. Either way, I'm not getting the "at cost" part on the labor side as I'm either paying their current employees or paying contractors which most certainly are NOT doing it for cost. Something doesn't seem right to me as I've worked with two other electric coops and both brought the power to me and I was on the hook for the meter loop pole and electrical box and they took care of it the rest of the way. Both times the meter loop pole/box cost me about 650+250 to hire it out to be set. That's a pretty large difference in policy...

In my experience with ECs, the "at cost construction" means that if they go over budget then you pay extra. For example, if the line is longer than they estimated, if they need to add a pole to go around something, etc you pay extra. That way they have no financial risk.If you are familiar with hard dollar construction, the owner usually has a defined scope of work and detailed drawings. ECs sort of work on a time and materials basis because they generally don't have a detailed scope of work or drawings.

ECs will usually connect you at no cost if they do not have to extend their Primary for single phase. Primary is the high voltage lines before the transformer.

Just a thought -- what if you could get them to put the meter at the pole and run your own line in, either underground or on your own poles? Bear in mind, that all maintenance after the meter would be your responsibility.