oops..


my house gets a lot of power surges and trips with any hint of a decent storm. oncor guy says a new breaker box needs to be installed, I think I need to put in a whole house surge protector

what does getting a new breaker box accomplish with this issue?

any idea on the estimated costs of either/both?

Depends on type of breaker box. Square D, GE, etc. square D has two different lines. Go back with arch fault breakers or standard breakers, etc. all depends

My buddy charges about $300 to install a whole house surge protector as long as there is room in the panel

I wanted to get one, but the box I had couldn't support it. If it's not a new house odds are you'll need to get a completely new panel. One workaround would be to split the 220 stuff to a different panel and try to get a surge on the 110 panel. But that's totally a YMMV thing and probably is the same cost as total start over. I was quoted 850 to totally re-do and sat on it.