Before anyone quotes you for electrical work in Raleigh, you can learn most of what matters about your panel in ten minutes, without a screwdriver and without taking the cover off. Here is what to look at and what each thing tells you.
#Where the panel is
In most Raleigh houses it is in the garage, a utility closet, a hallway, or on an exterior wall near the meter. Older homes sometimes have it in a bedroom closet or the basement. If you cannot find it, follow the thick cable from the meter on the outside of the house; the panel is usually on the other side of that wall.
#The main breaker number
At the top of the panel, or occasionally at the bottom, one larger breaker controls everything. The number printed on its handle is the size of your electrical service in amps. Common values are 100, 150 and 200. This single number decides whether the house can take a Level 2 EV charger or an electric range without a service upgrade, so it is the first thing an electrician will ask you.
If there is no main breaker in the panel at all, the main disconnect is probably outside next to the meter. Look there for the number.
#The brand
The manufacturer's name is on the cover or on a label inside the door. Square D, Eaton, Siemens and GE are the common ones. Two names worth knowing on sight are Federal Pacific, often marked Stab-Lok on the breakers, and Zinsco. Both were installed widely in homes built through the 1970s and early 1980s and both show up often in Raleigh home inspection reports. If you see either name, it is reasonable to have the panel evaluated even if nothing seems wrong.
#The labels
Inside the door is a directory that is supposed to say which breaker feeds which room or appliance. In many houses it is blank, faded or wrong. A useful weekend task is to fix that: turn breakers off one at a time and note what goes dead. It costs nothing and it makes any future service call faster.
#Open spaces
Count the empty slots where a breaker could go. If there are none, adding a circuit for a charger, a hot tub or a workshop means either a tandem breaker where the panel allows one, a subpanel, or a larger panel. A quote that includes a subpanel is not padding when the panel is full; it is the honest answer.
#Signs to take seriously
Rust or water stains at the bottom of the box, a cover that is warm to the touch, a faint burning smell, scorch marks around any breaker, or a buzzing sound that is louder than a very quiet hum. Any of these is a reason to have an electrician look at it soon rather than someday.
#What not to do
Do not remove the inner cover, the gray plate with the breakers poking through. Behind it are bare bus bars carrying the full service current, and there is nothing you need to see back there. Everything in this post is visible from the outside of the panel or inside the door.
If you write down the main breaker size, the brand and the number of open slots, you already know more than most homeowners do when the first quote arrives. That was the point.