Electrical Services in Portland, Maine

Power reaches your house through a service drop (overhead) or lateral (underground), passes through the utility meter, and lands at your main breaker — the single shutoff for everything in the house. From there, branch breakers split that capacity into individual circuits, each protecting a run of wire sized for what it feeds: a 15-amp circuit for a bedroom's outlets and lights, a 20-amp circuit for a kitchen countertop, a dedicated 40 to 60-amp circuit for a Level 2 EV charger or an electric range.

The panel's total rating — 100 amps, 150, or 200 — is the ceiling on how much you can add before an upgrade becomes necessary. A lot of our panel-upgrade calls start with a homeowner who didn't know that ceiling existed until an EV charger or heat pump quote hit it.

• Panel upgrades — more capacity, and replacing older panels with a documented safety history (Federal Pacific, Zinsco).
• Wiring and rewiring — dealing with knob-and-tube or aluminum branch circuits, or running new circuits for a remodel.
• Outlet and switch installation — new circuits, GFCI/AFCI code compliance, tamper-resistant devices.
• Lighting installation — recessed, outdoor, and smart lighting, done to the right fixture rating for the location.
• EV charger installation — a dedicated 240-volt circuit sized under NEC Article 625.
• Generator installation — standby power with a code-compliant automatic transfer switch.
• Electrical repair — flickering lights, warm outlets, nuisance tripping, and everything that falls under "something's not right."

Every one of those seven jobs, done correctly, is performed under a State of Maine electrician's license, pulled as a permit, and signed off by an inspector through the Office of Professional Licensing's Electricians' Examining Board. That inspection is a second set of eyes checking the work against code before it's buried behind drywall — the same reason a home inspector flags unpermitted electrical work when a house goes up for sale.

It also matters for insurance. A claim involving an electrical fire is scrutinized for whether the work that preceded it was permitted and done by a licensed electrician; unpermitted work can complicate or void coverage on the loss.

A growing share of our electrical calls start as an HVAC or plumbing conversation: a heat pump install that needs more panel capacity, a heat pump water heater that needs its own circuit, a generator sized to keep a boiler's circulator running through an outage. Because Aces Highlands holds electrical, plumbing, and heating licenses under one roof, that panel work, gas or condensate line, and equipment install happen under one permit with one crew — not three separate contractors trying to schedule around each other.