Methodology, sources and corrections
This page exists because a cost estimate is only worth what its sourcing is worth. Below: where each number comes from, when a person last checked it, everything this site has got wrong, and how it makes money. Nothing here is marketing. If a row says we have not sourced something, we have not sourced it.
How this site makes money
It does not. As of 3 August 2026 this site earns nothing, from anything.
- No affiliate programmes. No link on this site pays us.
- No advertising.
- No lead selling. We do not forward your details to contractors, because there is no contractor network to forward them to.
- Nothing is behind a payment or a signup.
The intention is to earn a fee in future by connecting homeowners with local electricians. We are telling you that now rather than after the fact. When it happens, this section changes first, the Terms will name who receives your information, and you will be asked to agree to it explicitly at the point you submit anything. Until you see that, nothing is being sent anywhere.
What this site is not
We are not electricians. Nobody here holds a US electrical licence, and nothing on this site is a substitute for an assessment by someone who does. We are not tax advisers either. What we do is arithmetic, in public, against sources you can open yourself.
That matters most where the stakes are highest. If you have an obsolete or recalled panel, or you suspect you do, that is a question for a licensed electrician and possibly your insurer, not for a website. What we can do is help you work out what the job should cost before you pick up the phone, so you can read a quote properly.
Where the numbers come from
Every dataset, its primary source, and the date a person last opened that source. A date that never moves is a warning sign, so we show it rather than hide it.
Federal energy tax credits, and their expiry dates
Sourced and in useQuoted verbatim from IRS guidance, including the statutory placed-in-service cut-off. Held in lib/data/incentives.ts, which returns zero for a lapsed credit rather than relying on anyone remembering to update a number.
Which pages on this site anyone actually reaches
Sourced and in useRead directly from the property for this domain and committed to the repository, so decisions about which pages to keep can be checked against the same numbers we used. Three months to 1 August 2026: 9 clicks, 8,300 impressions.
Permit requirements and fees for a panel upgrade, per jurisdiction
Not yet publishedNot yet published. Permit fees are set per authority having jurisdiction and are public but scattered, which is exactly why they are worth collecting properly rather than estimating.
Which utility serves a given address, and its service-upgrade rules
Not yet publishedNot yet published. Territory boundaries and the question of who pays for a service upgrade change the cost of the same job by thousands of dollars.
Residential electricity rates by utility
Not yet publishedNot yet published.
State and utility incentives that survive the federal repeal
Not yet publishedNot yet published. Now the federal credits are gone this is the only incentive money left, which makes it more worth getting right than it was a year ago, not less.
Electrician labour cost by metro
Not yet publishedNot yet published. When it is, it will be modelled from published wage data, not observed from quotes, and every page using it will say so.
Age of the housing stock, which predicts obsolete panel brands
Not yet publishedNot yet published. A neighbourhood built between 1950 and 1970 is statistically more likely to contain Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels.
Which National Electrical Code cycle a state has adopted
Not yet publishedNot yet published. The adopted cycle changes what is permitted and what is required, so it is not cosmetic.
Equipment and installation cost ranges
In use, not yet sourcedThe cost ranges currently shown across the site were inherited from its original build and carry no citation. We are not going to pretend otherwise: treat them as indicative, not authoritative, until this row says live. Re-sourcing them is the next job after the panel calculator.
Federal incentives, as this site currently holds them
Rendered straight from the registry every calculator on this site reads. If this table is wrong, every figure on the site is wrong in the same way, which is the point of having one table rather than five copies.
Covered solar, wind, geothermal and battery storage of 3 kWh or more. IRS: "The credit is not available for any property placed in service after December 31, 2025."
Air source heat pumps, heat pump water heaters and biomass stoves shared a $2,000 annual cap. IRS: allowed for property "placed in service on or after Jan. 1, 2023, and before December 31, 2025."
Insulation, air sealing, windows, doors and home energy audits shared a $1,200 aggregate annual cap, separate from the heat pump category.
Panelboards, sub-panelboards, branch circuits and feeders qualified for up to $600, but only when installed alongside other qualifying property. A standalone service upgrade never qualified on its own. Relevant to panel upgrade content.
Home EV charger credit, 30% up to $1,000, and only in eligible census tracts. IRS: property bought and placed in service at a main home "from January 1, 2023, to June 30, 2026." This one outlived 25C and 25D by six months.
Corrections
Everything we have found wrong on this site, what it said, and what it says now. Entries are never removed. If you think something here is still wrong, we would rather hear it than not.
What it said: The site said the 30% federal solar credit runs "through 2032" and calculated every cost, payback and ROI figure with a 30% credit, a $2,000 heat pump credit and a $1,200 envelope credit applied. All three had already been repealed. A homeowner reading this site would have budgeted for money that does not exist.
What it says now: The 25D and 25C credits ended for property placed in service after 31 December 2025, and the 30C home EV charger credit ended after 30 June 2026. Every calculation now reads its incentive values from a single registry that carries each statutory expiry date, so a lapsed credit returns zero instead of quietly persisting.
Primary sourceWhat it said: The most-read page on the site worked every example, its entire incentive section and its FAQ structured data from the 30C credit as though it were current, and its closing line said federal credits were "locked in through 2032".
What it says now: Worked examples show no federal credit and a correspondingly higher out-of-pocket cost. The page explains that 30C turned on the placed-in-service date, not the date you paid or signed.
Primary sourceWhat it said: The Terms, the Privacy Policy, the chat widget and the outbound email all said a quote request goes to "up to 3 pre-screened installers in your area". No such network existed, and none of those details were ever forwarded to anyone.
What it says now: There is no installer network. A quote request is recorded so we can reply to it, and goes nowhere else. If that ever changes, the Terms will name the recipients and you will be asked to consent explicitly before anything is sent.
What it said: The footer said "we earn a commission on purchases made through our links". The site was not enrolled in any affiliate programme and earned nothing from any link on it.
What it says now: The disclosure is gone, because there was nothing to disclose. See the revenue section below for what this site does and does not make money from.
What it said: Components displayed a randomly generated number between 47 and 89 as "homeowners requested quotes today", a claim that "only 3 installer slots" remained this month, invented testimonials, and a banner urging readers to act before a credit "drops to 26% in 2033" that had by then already been repealed.
What it says now: All of it is deleted. There are no counters, no scarcity claims and no testimonials on this site, because there is nothing real to count yet.
What it said: Five state solar incentive pages carried 60 unresolved [VERIFY] markers: rebate amounts, income thresholds and processing times that the author had flagged as unchecked and published regardless.
What it says now: Those pages are withheld from search until each figure is sourced against DSIRE. They were not earning a single impression, so nobody loses anything by our checking first.
What it said: Article structured data carried publication dates of "December 2026", a date that has not happened, and "December 2024", before this site existed. Both were being served to Google as-is.
What it says now: All pages carry valid ISO dates for publication and last modification.
Found something wrong?
Tell us and it gets fixed and logged above, with the date. That is the whole arrangement.