Expert Electrician Services in Dover, New Hampshire

New Hampshire ice storms are the benchmark event — ice loading snaps lines and limbs, and the outages can run for days. Dover's mature tree canopy makes it worse. A standby generator with an automatic transfer switch starts itself when the grid drops and carries the furnace, well pump, fridge, and lights. We size it from your must-run list and verify the transfer switch isolates the house from the grid every time. The weekly self-test means the unit exercises itself, so it starts when January demands it. The transfer switch isolates the house from the grid automatically, protecting line crews and the generator alike. The generator's fuel — natural gas or propane — gets sized alongside the electrical, so the unit runs as long as the outage does.

Dover's oldest homes can still carry original wiring. Knob-and-tube has no ground wire, its insulation is long past its intended life, and two centuries of changes have spliced and buried it. We map every live run before touching anything, then rewire in phases that keep the house livable while the hazardous circuits come out — protecting the plaster and wide-board floors along the way. We open the walls carefully and close them cleanly, because the repair shouldn't leave scars on an old house.

The small capes and farmhouses from the early-to-mid 1900s often still run on 60-amp fuse service — blown fuses, no room for new circuits, no modern protection. A 200-amp breaker panel with arc-fault and ground-fault protection retires the fuse era in a day or two and gives the house decades of headroom. The meter socket and service drop get checked during the same visit — a new panel on a tired service entrance is only half the upgrade. If the panel is the original fuse box, the service entrance behind it is usually due for the same attention.

Ice loading doesn't just take down lines — it tears service masts and meter sockets off houses. After a storm, the entrance head can be hanging by its wires. The homeowner owns the mast and the meter socket; Eversource owns the drop. We repair the entrance equipment and coordinate with the utility on their side so the power comes back clean. If you're buying a home in Dover, checking the service entrance during inspection is one of the smartest things you can do.

The mid-century stock in Dover carries cloth- and rubber-insulated wiring that's now brittle and cracking, especially in hot attics. Cracked insulation exposes conductors — the classic hidden fire risk. An inspection with the covers off shows whether you're looking at targeted circuit replacement or a full rewire, and which runs can't wait. The attics get eyes on them first, because heat up there ages insulation faster than anywhere else. The fix is circuit by circuit, replacing the runs that are cracked and heat-damaged while leaving sound wiring alone.

A Level 2 charger is a large, continuous load, and on a 100-amp service it's frequently what breaks the load calculation. We run the math before anyone buys equipment — if the panel is short, the 200-amp upgrade comes first and the charger follows. Installed in that order, the charger works from day one. The service drop from Eversource's side gets eyes on it too, because a fattened service needs a clean feed.