Panel Letter

Hillsborough / Pinellas

Federal Pacific panel replacement in Tampa–St. Petersburg

Tampa Bay is four permit counters and two electric utilities, not one job. City of Tampa and unincorporated Hillsborough are different Accela portals. St. Petersburg and unincorporated Pinellas are different again. TECO and Duke Energy Florida are not interchangeable.

Last reviewed 2026-09-01. Print this page if you need a copy for someone else in the house.

<!-- LISTING_OUTREACH - Accurate Electric LLC | EC13011008 | form-phone-only | no public shop email on own site OMITTED - Power LLC | EC13015512 | public email info@powerll.com on own site | DBPR status Null and Void — not a listing (cost source only) -->

Hyde Park bungalows and Seminole Heights cottages still hide Federal Pacific and Zinsco load centers that were ordinary when those streets were new. The insurance letter is usually written somewhere else. The work is governed by whichever city sits on the parcel and by whichever utility owns the meter.

Those two systems do not match. Inside Tampa city limits the permit is Construction Services through Accela. Unincorporated Hillsborough County is HillsGovHub, including a named ELE-Electrical power-release inspection before the utility restores the service. St. Petersburg is its own Construction Services and Permitting shop at One 4th Street North. Unincorporated Pinellas County is the Pinellas Access Portal. A helper with a van is not the person who can print any of those.

Lakeland and Sarasota are nearby on a map and not this packet. This page stays on Hillsborough and Pinellas.

What TECO and Duke actually wrote

TECO’s Standard Electrical Service Requirements are blunt about who may touch the company’s side. Connections to or disconnections from Tampa Electric equipment are TECO’s job. There is a published exception: a licensed electrician may optionally disconnect a residential or small-commercial single-phase overhead service of 300 amps or less if they schedule the reconnect first, leave TECO’s attachment point alone, do not cut TECO conductors, and take the meter out only after the service is dead. Three-phase stays with TECO so phase rotation is preserved. The tariff repeats the inspection gate: where a city or county electrical wiring permit is required, no service will be connected or altered until that inspector signs.

Duke Energy Florida’s April 2026 Service Requirements Manual says a licensed electrical contractor shall notify the company before breaking and removing the meter seal, then notify the company immediately after the work so Duke can re-inspect and replace the seal. Company-owned meters are not for the customer to pull.

Neither utility publishes a guaranteed outage window. Power LLC’s Tampa page describes four to six hours off for a standard 100A-to-200A upgrade. Treat that as contractor language.

Read the bill before the estimate. The City of St. Petersburg bills water and trash. City flood notices send power outages to Duke Energy. A contractor page that invents a municipal electric company for St. Pete is not the official rulebook.

Permits inside the cities and in the counties

Inside Tampa city limits, start at Construction Services. Accela Citizen Access is the online counter. Hillsborough County’s own permits page says building and subtrade work is HillsGovHub, not the city portal, and the county’s FAQ names the electrical power-release inspection you schedule on that record.

In St. Petersburg, Construction Services and Permitting sits at the Municipal Services Center. Online applications and ePlan review are the published path. The city’s July 2026 HB 803 cheap-job exemption does not cover electrical work. Unincorporated Pinellas County tells you to confirm the address is actually in the county — Belleair Beach and St. Pete are not the Pinellas portal.

A 100A-to-200A upgrade is a utility coordination job as well as a city or county permit.

Price, without inventing one

One Tampa contractor page publishes installed 2026 bands. Power LLC’s Tampa panel-upgrade page says a typical 100A-to-200A upgrade is $1,800–$3,200, a same-amperage 200A replacement is $1,400–$2,400, a Federal Pacific / Zinsco / Pushmatic swap-out is $2,200–$3,800, and 400-amp work is $4,500–$7,500. Those are printed lines, not an average we made up.

Florida license lookup is public. Ask for the EC (certified, statewide) or ER (registered, local) number and check it on DBPR before you sign. Accurate Electric LLC advertises Zinsco and Federal Pacific work on its own site, prints EC13011008, and matched a Current/Active certified electrical record at Plant City. Their FPE page is a form and a phone number; we did not find a public shop mailbox there.

Power LLC prints EC13015512 and a public info@powerll.com inbox, but the official DBPR detail for that number is Null and Void. We used their prices and omitted them as a listing rather than guess a different license. Directory-only shops and generic multi-city sites are omitted. Accurate is not affiliated with Panel Letter.

What to hand the carrier

The useful packet is the closed city or county electrical permit, the passed inspection (Hillsborough’s power-release is worth naming on the invoice), an invoice with the EC number on it, and photos if the letter asks. If your electrician produces a load calculation or a labeled panel schedule, send that too. We did not find a Florida carrier page that publishes a single national “sticker” form. Ask the agent what they will actually open.

Electricians who advertise this job

A shop is listed only if it advertises Federal Pacific, Zinsco, or insurance-driven panel replacement on its own site and prints a license number there. Trade-association locators already exist. We will not pad this list. Verify the license before you hire.

To get introduced, use the quote form on this page. We do not send you to the shop from here.

Request quotes from licensed electricians who do insurance-flagged panel replacement

We send this to Panel Letter and match it in Tampa–St. Petersburg. No countdown clock, no “four quotes in 60 seconds,” nothing to Angi or Thumbtack.

Do you have an insurance letter about this panel?

Photo upload comes later. A picture of the closed door and the inside label is enough if someone asks.