Jay Moody Heating and Air Conditioning

40 Years of HVAC Installation & Service in North Central Massachusetts

(978) 534-9483
[email protected]

What is a Service Upgrade & When is One Needed?

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Taking on home improvement projects can be daunting, especially when faced with unexpected challenges. A common hurdle in larger projects is the need for an Electrical Service Upgrade.

Mitsubishi mini-split installation in Bolton, MA.

Whether you’re looking to install a new heat pump system, a hot tub or an electrical appliance, discovering a service upgrade is required can catch you off guard.

What is an Electrical Service Upgrade?

A service upgrade includes upgrading the electrical service provided to your home by your utility company. This enables your home to access more electrical power than was previously available.  

When are Electrical Service Upgrades needed?

A service upgrade is needed when your home lacks sufficient available power to support current or additional electrical system(s).

SPAN electrical vehicle charging station mounted.

This is common when adding larger, electrically powered appliances such as hot tubs, heat pumps or EV charging stations.

Older homes, in particular, are more likely to have electrical systems that were not designed to handle the increased load of modern appliances.

In addition to violating electrical codes, overloading your home’s electrical service can lead to frequent tripped circuits, overheating of wires and even electrical fires.

Will I need a Service Upgrade if I switch to Heat Pumps?

When updating your home’s HVAC system, specifically with heat pumps, it’s important to take into consideration the power required. 

The amount of electricity needed to operate a heat pump depends on several factors, including the size and efficiency of the heat pump, the climate in which it is operating and the desired indoor temperature. 

Mitsubishi whole-home heat pump system.

Typically, one heat pump is on a 15 amp, 240V breaker.  To heat or cool a small home, often requires 40 to 50 amps and larger homes may need upwards of 100 amps in very hot or very cold conditions.

Whether or not your home requires a service upgrade depends on the size of your current Electrical Service and its capacity for additional electrical loads. For this reason, it’s important to work with a qualified contractor when upgrading your heating/cooling system!

Your contractor should take into consideration the capacity of your home’s current electrical service. Failure to do so is a major red flag that the contractor is not qualified!

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  • We engaged Jay Moody to retrofit our 1935 Arts & Crafts brick bungalow with ceiling mounted heat pumps to provide air conditioning throughout the house and to reduce our oil burning for heat and hot water. Paul Sharley did a very good job with the design, and Paul Bilodeau was outstanding in the implementation. We’d struggled for years to find a way to bring central air to this old home with plaster and metal lathe walls, and this is a perfect solution for us! The design has 4 ceiling units on the first floor and one in each of three bedrooms on the 2nd floor, giving us seven zones, which enables us to be very efficient with our heating and cooling. It was important to us to retain the gracious look of the home, especially on the main floor, and the low-profile ceiling units do just that. These units are usually only installed on the top floor because they are a few inches deeper than the joists, however the bungalow has four eaves closets on the 2nd floor. Jay Moody was able to position the units in these deep closets so that they have virtually no impact on the usability of that space. Paul Bilodeau worked with us to position the units so that they looked very nice on the first floor and were conveniently positioned in the 2nd floor closets. We have been very happy with the performance of the system during the summer and now that the cold weather has started. The people at Jay Moody are wonderful. Every single person we talked to was very kind and polite. We cannot say enough about Paul & Paul. Extremely competent, responsive and a pleasure to work with!

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    Sheila Julien

  • Moody is the best…. Always there when I need them. Very prompt and professional

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    Edwin Lopez

  • The young man that came to my house to clean my boiler and mini split such a fine young gentleman so polite, left everything clean and did an amazing job…….. So happy we have such good small businesses in Leominster area

    Lisa Doucet

  • So accommodating to fit us in based on our busy schedule. Technical experts that were able to explain everything in easy to understand terms for us "non-experts". Made some timely, costly recommendations for further maintenance until our next annual appt. Courteous, prompt, efficient and friendly to name a few other attributes of Jay Moody HVAC. Thx for the support.

    Greg L

  • We would 100% recommend hiring Jay Moody. We had them replace our entire heating/cooling system with a central heat pump and air handler. They also replaced our old water heater with a hybrid electric water heater. Leo was very informative about our specific situation and what equipment would work well. He was also very responsive with any questions we had. Joey and the installation team were very professional, on time with the installation and clean. Vince and Sydney in the office were great at staying in touch during the process and making things very simple for us. Thank you all again!

    Evan Carloni

  • The technician was super knowledgeable, easy to speak to and ask questions, and explain everything thoroughly. I had a great experience with this company!

    Ashley Marrama

  • Great service by Thomas Richard! Very thorough and timely service. Will definitely be using your services yearly. Thank you so much.

    Alfonso Vega

  • Hyojan was very kind, professional and seemed very knowledgeable when responding to my gas service request. He found a potentially dangerous situation with my exhaust pipe and made it a priority to fix it. As I am new to learning about a gas burner, he was very willing to give me information on the main parts of the unit. I would recommend him and hope he's available for the spring AC service.

    Allison Michener-Clark

  • Great experience from the proper assessment of the home to the install of our mini split. The Technicians Adam and Bret were Professional, Clean and did a great job. Thank you!

    Blair Rodgers

  • Tech Scott was very responsive and professional. He offered some good advice in several areas and came up with a creative solution to the problem. I would highly recommend Scott.

    Scot Duguay