Electric Avenue PNW serves Tigard homeowners and businesses with licensed electrical work matched to the city’s specific housing eras — Metzger postwar ranches with ungrounded cloth wiring, Bonita and Cook Park 1970s tracts loaded with aluminum branch circuits and FPE panels, Summerfield’s aging Zinsco equipment, and Bull Mountain tract homes running 150A services that can’t keep up with modern EVs and heat pumps. We file permits directly through Tigard’s Community Development Hub, and we show up when we say we will.
Tigard Electrical Work — Neighborhood by Neighborhood
Tigard’s housing stock runs the full postwar-to-present arc, and each era hides a different electrical problem. Metzger and North Tigard — the oldest concentrated inventory, built between 1945 and 1965 — still runs on 60A or 100A services, Pushmatic or early Square D panels, and two-wire cloth NM cable with no equipment grounding conductor. That’s why every three-prong outlet in those homes is either a lie or a GFCI retrofit. The Bonita and Cook Park buildout of 1965–1980 caught the aluminum branch-wiring era dead-on, and those neighborhoods are also ground zero for Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) Stab-Lok and Zinsco panels — both notorious for breakers that won’t trip and busbars that arc and melt.
Summerfield, the 55+ community that straddles the King City border, is a 1970s buildout with the same FPE/Zinsco exposure, and because residents are aging in place, even a minor kitchen or bathroom remodel frequently triggers a mandatory panel swap under current Oregon Electrical Specialty Code. Bull Mountain and West Tigard are a different animal — larger 1980s–2000s custom and tract homes that are electrically healthier on paper, but the 150A services most of them shipped with are systematically failing load calculations when homeowners add a 48A EV charger, a ducted heat pump, and an induction cooktop on the same meter. The Tigard Triangle and Downtown core are the newest story: all-electric, net-zero mixed-use builds with smart panels, centralized heat pump water heaters, and structured Level 2 EV charging — an entirely different scope of work.
Common Services We Perform in Tigard
| Service | Common Tigard Scenario |
|---|---|
| FPE Stab-Lok / Zinsco panel replacement | Bonita, Cook Park, Summerfield 1965–1980 homes |
| Aluminum branch wiring remediation | Bonita and Cook Park 1965–1973 ranches — AlumiConn / COPALUM |
| Ungrounded 2-wire rewire / GFCI retrofit | Metzger and North Tigard postwar homes |
| Panel upgrade (150A → 200A / Class 320) | Bull Mountain homes adding EV + heat pump + induction |
| EV charger installation (Level 2) | Commuters to Hillsboro tech corridor and Washington Square |
| Standby generator installation | Bull Mountain hillside homes — post-2024 ice storm demand |
| Whole-house rewiring | Metzger pre-1965 homes with cloth-insulated NM |
| ADU electrical (detached, up to 800 sq ft) | Subpanel feeds or new dual-meter services citywide |
| Commercial tenant improvements | Tigard Triangle restaurant and retail build-outs |
| Emergency weatherhead / service mast repair | After ice storms — falling limbs stripping overhead drops |
| 24/7 emergency electrical | Tripped mains, burning smell, dead circuits — any hour |
Tigard Permits — Community Development Hub, Not Washington County
Here’s the thing most homeowners don’t know: if your address is inside the City of Tigard, your electrical permit is issued by Tigard’s own Building Division through the Community Development Hub — not by Washington County Building Services in Hillsboro. If you’re on the edge (Metzger fringe, West Tigard near the Beaverton line, or south toward Tualatin), your “Tigard” mailing address might actually sit in unincorporated Washington County, which routes the permit to the county instead. We verify jurisdiction by address on every job before we file. Submitting to the wrong agency is an instant rejection.
For straightforward residential work — a like-for-like panel swap, a 50A EV circuit, a subpanel feed — Tigard issues trade permits online, often same-day. For larger projects (commercial TIs in the Triangle, solar-plus-storage, generator installations) plan review runs through the Hub as well, and Tigard is widely known in the trade for moving faster than Portland BDS on similar scope. We file every permit on your behalf.
PGE Rebates and 2026 Incentives for Tigard Homeowners
All of Tigard is PGE territory. PGE’s current EV charger rebate covers up to 50% of charger cost (capped at $300) for standard residential customers, but the Empower EV program for income-qualified customers (under 80% of Washington County AMI, or SNAP/LIHEAP enrolled) is where the real money is — up to $2,000 for the charger install and up to $5,000 for the required panel upgrade. PGE also offers a $300 rebate on generator or battery backup systems integrated through a transfer switch. Energy Trust of Oregon adds a flat $2,500 incentive on qualifying solar PV systems. The federal 30C EV charger tax credit is still available through June 30, 2026, but the window is closing. We verify every rebate before quoting — not from last year’s brochure.
“Tigard splits into two electrical worlds. North of 99W, in Metzger and Cook Park, I’m still pulling out FPE panels and aluminum wiring from 1972 on a weekly basis — that stuff doesn’t get better with age. Up on Bull Mountain it’s a completely different problem: perfectly good 150-amp panels from 1998 that just physically can’t carry a Rivian, a heat pump, and an induction range at the same time. Both jobs need a real load calc and a proper service upgrade. The one thing I tell every Tigard homeowner: don’t let a cheap quote skip the permit. Unpermitted electrical work shows up on the disclosure when you sell, and it will cost you five times the savings.”
— Jack, Licensed Electrician, Electric Avenue PNW
Why Tigard Homeowners Call Us
- Veteran-owned, minority-owned, woman-owned — CCB# 248553, fully licensed and bonded in Oregon
- Free site assessments — real load calcs, not guesses
- Permit filing included — Tigard Community Development Hub or Washington County, whichever your address requires
- Rebate-fluent — we build PGE Empower EV and Energy Trust incentives into the quote
- Fanno Creek floodplain and HOA experience — Summerfield and Bull Mountain ARC submittals handled
- 24/7 emergency response — no after-hours upcharge games
- Straight answers — if you don’t need the work, we’ll tell you
Ready to schedule? Call us at (503) 816-8821 or check our full service area to see every city we cover across the Portland metro. We offer free site assessments for panel upgrades, EV charger installs, and generator installations — no commitment required.