Panel Cover Locks in Residential Buildings

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DPMin

Member
Location
Pennsylvania
I was recently working in the home of an elderly man who apparently liked to go into his electrical panel an turn off breakers just for fun. His caretaker asked if I could install a lock on the panel cover.

I wasn't sure if code allowed this or not, but my initial guess would have been no. A previous post in this forum referred to 110.26(G). It seems to say its ok to put locks on panels. Is my interpretation correct? Does this apply to residential?

Also, has anyone had experience with this? Any other ideas of how to keep this guy from fooling around with his panel?

Thanks!
 
cowboyjwc

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
I wouldn't see a problem locking it, as long as there is "always" a key availible. So if there caregiver is there all the time that would be fine. People like the FD would just break or cut the lock off if they needed to get in there.


Now, and I might get some arguments about this, the reason I said "always" was, let's say that they call you out to work on the panel and the caregiver with the key isn't there, then I would not consider the panel accessible. But now that I just thought of it, since it's resi, you could just unscrew the cover to get into it.
 
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220/221

Senior Member
Location
AZ
Self tapping screws will keep him out and let you in.

Keys are always a pain to keep track of. I always have a screwdriver.
 
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