RogerT wrote:

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I was thinking that if replacing the hot bus bar was an easy and fairly
common thing to do that maybe I would just go that route. I thought that
would avoid the labor involved in having all of the existing cirucits
removed from the old panel, put a new panel in, and reconnect all of the
cirucits. But it appears that even finding the correct replacement bus bar
for the existing panel would be an issue, and the consensus seems to be that
I'd be much better off anyway replacing the entire service panel.

Someone mentioned not reusing the old breakers -- I wouldn't want to do that
anyway and never had that in mind. And, someone else mentioned something
about 14 guage wire being on 20-amp breakers. I don't know where that came
from because there is no 14 guage wire on any 20-amp breakers in the
existing service panel, and I would never do that either.

I don't ever do any service panel replacements on my own. I'm pretty sure I
could figure it out and learn how to do it if needed, but dealing with the
main service power lines that come in to the panel is really out of my
league. Even changing a main breaker is something that I have never done
and I wouldn't want to be doing on my own. I am pretty comfortable with
mostly everything after the main breaker, although I am not so sure I would
want to take on replacing the hot bus bar in a panel.

The good news is that there is an electric company almost next door to where
this property is and I have had them do work there before. I also have a
licensed electrician that I use for new electric service at other properties
I have. So, I can easily get a price for having a new service panel put in
at this property. But, before contacting the almost-next-door electric
company, I wanted to check and see what people here thought of the
possibility of just replacing the bus bar rather than the whole panel. I'll
ask them too when they look at the job, just in case they think it would be
a good idea and they could get the part etc.

I agree that getting 200-amp service instead of 100-amp service is usually
worth it when getting a new service put in. The difference in price is not
that much. When I have done that, the price difference was $200 in one case
and $300 in another. Since that's only a one-time cost, the extra cost
seems negligible to me over the life of the home. In the casses where I was
getting a new service put in, the job included replacing a very old service
and included a new drop being installed. Since that was being done anyway,
I opted for 200-amp service whenever I could. I guess part of the increase
in price from 100-amp to 200-amp service included the increased cost for the
higher guage wire for the drop etc.

In this current property, the drop is already in place for the existing
100-amp service. I don't know the guage of that wire or whether it would
accomodate a new 200-amp (or even 150-amp) service.

Doing the panel replacement is quite easy for your own home, I've done a
number of them over the years and taught "service panel replacement 101"
for a few friends who did their own, all without the slightest issue. It
sounds like you're talking about commercial / rental properties and in
that case you end up with a lot of headaches if you want to do the
upgrade yourself, so you're better off contracting it anyway.

Unless the house has a lot of large electric loads - stove, dryer, heat,
A/C, hot tub, etc. there isn't a real compelling reason to upgrade to
200A service unless you are replacing the panel anyway *and* can confirm
that the service drop and meter base are good for 200A.