Subpanel Installation in Portland, OR & the Metro Area

A second panel fed from your main panel, placed where the new circuits are — garage, shop, ADU or addition. Sized to your space and code-compliant across Portland, Clackamas, Beaverton, and surrounding communities.

A subpanel is a second breaker panel fed from the main panel by one large breaker and a feeder cable. It does not add capacity to the service coming in from the utility. What it adds is breaker space, and it puts that space where the circuits are needed — a detached garage, a workshop, an ADU, an addition or a finished basement — so each new circuit runs a short distance instead of all the way back to the main panel.

The job starts with a load calculation. We add up what the house runs now and what the new space will run, and tell you whether the main panel can feed the new one or whether the service itself is too small, in which case a panel upgrade comes first. Then we set the feeder breaker, run the feeder, mount the new panel and land the circuits. Neutrals and grounds are kept separate in a subpanel — a common mistake in older do-it-yourself installs.

Because the feeder lands inside your existing main panel, the utility — PGE or Pacific Power, depending on the address — does not usually need to pull the meter: we switch the main breaker off, do the work, and switch it back on. A detached building also gets its own grounding at that building. We pull the permit and test every circuit before we leave.