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Underground Conversion Process

Underground service for your home

Your service drop is the line that comes from the power line or pole near your house to your meter. This type of conversion is desirable because the connection to your home changes from a weatherhead to a downpipe. However, converting your service drop to an underground service presents many challenges. These include:

  • As the customer requesting this service, you will be responsible for securing, describing and recording the right-of-way easements from private property owners if one is not granted by the local government.
  • Other utilities such as telecommunications and cable may be affected. They may also need to be contacted and involved in the process.
  • Obstructions to entrances and exits to properties or certain areas may also occur as the work is being done. This can be especially problematic if commercial properties are affected.

Starting the process

lease review, complete and print out the following documents to begin the process:

Mail or e-mail the completed forms to your local FPL construction office. Upon receipt of the form, an FPL Design Engineer will contact you to discuss specifics, including payment, material pickup and scheduling.

What to expect

  • FPL will provide the underground conduit, but it is your responsibility to install it.
  • Once the FPL issued conduit has been installed, FPL will need to inspect it to make sure it adheres to national electrical codes.
  • Additionally, you will need to secure an inspection from your city or municipality on your electrical wiring. Once the requirements have been met, FPL will schedule an appointment for the conversion. Appointments will usually occur within two to three weeks of your request.

Checklist

To convert your home service to underground, you will need to:

  • Hire a licensed electrician to prepare your home and make it ready to receive underground service.
  • Schedule an outage with FPL and your licensed electrician to have the work done.
  • Pay a tariff fee associated with converting an existing overhead service to underground.

Underground service for your community

These are steps to convert a community to underground service:

Ball park estimate

  • Customer provides a written request to FPL, which includes:
    • Well-defined conversion area.
    • Any information that would assist in layout of the facilities such as existing utility plans, plat drawings, etc.
    • If this project needs to occur in multiple phases for any reason such as funding, seasonal road closures, concurrent development projects, etc.
  • FPL will:
    • Provide ballpark estimate for the conversion area.
    • FPL reliability improvements plan
    • Provide price for a non-refundable engineering deposit.
    • Establish general easement requirements. 

Binding estimate

  • Customer will:
    • Pay a non-refundable engineering deposit.
    • Begin securing necessary easements for underground facilities and above-ground equipment.
  • FPL will:
    • Calculate the cost for conversion of existing overhead to underground facilities (good for 180 days).
    • Provide details on what agreements are required for this project:
      • Underground conversion agreements
      • Customer facilities installation agreement
      • ROW agreements, etc.
    • Provide payment options.
    • Set up a meeting to review final design and charges. 

Final design and securing agreements and easements

  • Customer will secure easements with property owners as needed.
  • FPL will:
    • Perform final detail engineering design and determine any changes from binding estimate.
    • Provide necessary documents and paperwork. 

Construction

  • Customer will:
    • Pay for underground conversion costs less engineering deposit.
    • Install conduit provided by FPL if necessary.
  • FPL will:
    • Schedule work to begin after payment received.
    • Install underground facilities.
    • Connect new underground services and disconnect existing overhead services.
    • Remove overhead facilities.