Well thank you for all of the information.
I called the electric company and was not able to speak with Harry about his specific concerns and reasoning (I mean he is one man who covers the entire residential work for a city of half million, but he was so nice to ....take such an interest in my house...).
Anyway the woman I spoke with said that code now is for the meters to be in the front of the house, on new construction, or to the side in front of the gate, but lots and lots of people upgrade their panel and don't move the meter. She couldn't imagine why I would need to move the meter, unless it might be next to a gas meter (no it's not). Well I should be able to do an upgrade without moving the meter. She said there is nothing in my personal record stating that meter readers have had problems accessing my meter to read, which could be another reason to move it, but not in my case.
Currently the electric panel is in the garage with loads of space in front of it and to the sides. In fact I would think it was protected there, from the elements - the wind, the rain, etc, etc. But I can see where it would more time consuming to move it instead of using the same space,
? That's a plus right? For the electrician.
So I have someone else coming tomorrow. His ad said free estimates, but it turns out that coming to my house is a troubleshooting event, not an estimate so he charges $98/hour,
The fact of the matter is, I can't be leaving work every other day for this, and I need it to be over. If the other guy would have just been satisfied with $2,500 for a new panel he would be starting the job tomorrow and be done on Friday - but you needing to move everything to the side of the house - well he needs to get the electric company's approval on what they like and how they want it done and when they want it done? What? I had said I wanted things done appropriate and according to code. Maybe that is not a good thing to say if you don't want the job to expand so large.
I rather think the electrician felt that if he put things off long enough I would get more and more desperate as the weather got worse and being frozen myself and worrying about my pipes being frozen I might agree to anything,
Anyway - he is gone - let's see what his bill is. I am just not a crawl under the house kind of gal, and I not very handy doing plumbing or electrical and in no way would trust myself to be able to make judgments even if I watched a lot to you tube videos. I just don't want to be cheated.