EVDRIVER said:
Yes, this is a big red flag, how are they traveling for 12 hours?
Sunwest is an Orange County company, and the OP is in San Diego. It is about a 90 minute commute, depending on traffic. They must be estimating about 4 round trips to complete the job, maybe?
I found it odd that Ecotality had to go to an OC contractor to get installs done in San Diego, especially when there are electricians sitting on their hands by the score right now due to the downturn in construction here, but Sunwest was also assigned as my EVP contractor and did my assessment, which was determined to be free within the EVP guidelines. Baker Electric seems to be the only other contractor ever mentioned for San Diego. Sure it may take a little training, but why couldn't more contractors have been recruited? There are electricians begging for work all over the place right now. My brother-in-law is one of them.
As a former general contractor myself, I have to say there is some fat in that bid. If one of my subs submitted it, I would assume they were telling me "We don't really want or need this job, but we'll do it if you pay us enough" and I would get another bid, from someone closer and hungrier.
As a somewhat useless datapoint, since it was probably 12 years ago now and prices have gone WAY up, I upgraded the service to my house, which was built in 1947 w/ 110V overhead service to a fuse box, to a 220V 3-wire overhead service for about $1200 out of pocket. This included the new panel, 2" galvanized mast and roof jack, new ground stake, 100-amp main and ten individual circuit breakers, 12' of conduit and wiring to shunt from the old fuse box to the new panel, and a 75' run of new external conduit out of the garage to the laundry room, to provide some new circuits and distribute loads that were causing tripping in the kitchen. Permit costs were about $175, IIRC, at the time. Of course I just hired an electrician friend of mine on an hourly basis, and did it myself one weekend, arranged all the permitting, inspections and SDG&E work myself, and there was no cost for my labor or P&O.
YMMV,
TT