Avoiding a service upgrade

[jeff43222]

I went out on an estimate today for what should have been an easy job ...

The homeowner just wants power to her basement bathroom to be independent of the light switch at the top of the stairs. If the switch is off, the basement bathroom is dead. Since I know I can't connect the bathroom (i.e., the receptacles therein) to anything else in the house except other bathroom receptacles, my thinking is that there's really no legal way for me to put power into the bathroom without running a new circuit to it, which would be quite easy (I found the j-box from the switch, and it's pretty close to the service). That's when the problems arose.

Her main panel is a 60A fuse box with four 15A fuses, plus there's a subpanel with a 40A range circuit breaker, and another subpanel with three 15A fuses and a 30A fuse (which is actually protecting some lighting circuits in the basement!). She also has central air with a 30A disconnect fuse. Yes, I think an upgrade is a good idea.

But money is tight, and upgrading the service would be a major hassle because of the way the house is laid out. Her service is currently running to a service head that disappears immediately into the roof of the porch, and somehow it makes its way down to the basement. The attic area over the porch is inaccessible.

I'd like to find some way to get her bathroom situation resolved without having to resort to a service upgrade. Anyone have any ideas as to how I can help her without having to upgrade her service?

[ May 13, 2005, 11:21 PM: Message edited by: jeff43222 ]

 

[paul32]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

Not the cheapest, but short of a service upgrade: change the fuse subpanels to a breaker subpanel, with extra space for the new bathroom circuit.

Otherwise, a new very small subpanel for the bathroom circuit. Or join two existing circuits on one of the existing fuses to free up that fuse for the bathroom circuit. Fixing the 30A problem would be a good idea anyway.

 

[celtic]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

I was thinking something along the lines of what paul said...rip out all the fused panels and put in a 20ckt(+/-) panel.

I wouldn't rely on the number of fuses for a ckt count...I "had" a similair arrangement in the house we recently bought..a 50A FPE main, to a 4 ckt fused, to a 2 ckt fused, to 2 keyless sockets each with a fuse in them. Looked liked maybe a dozen ckts until you counted the cables...11 into the 4 ckt, 4 into the 2 ckt, etc. All told, at least 20 ckts.

Before you commit to a price - take off the covers and see how many fuses are doubled, even tripled up.

 

[tshea]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

rip out all the fused panels and put in a 20ckt(+/-) panel

Most economical idea I see. At a later date you can go back and rip out the 60A fuse box, install a 100Amp main breaker along with appropriate metering, riser, grounding, etc., and "just tie in" the MLO panel.

Fixing the 30A problem would be a good idea anyway

Do this for sure!

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

The only fused subpanel that needs to be changed out is the one that has four fuses in it. The other two boxes with fuses in them each only have one, and they are protecting the A/C and furnace. At this point, I see no good reason to mess with them.

I think it will be within budget to swap out the four-space fuse box and replace it with a MLO panelboard. I haven't opened it up yet to see what kind of trouble is lurking there, but I'll be going back soon to do other work on the house, and I'll check then. I definitely want to examine the 30A fuse and see what kind of wire it's protecting. I have a hard time believing that someone ran #10 wire to receptacles and light fixtures.

She said another electrician previously mentioned that upgrading the service was a good idea, so she's considering it. Whatever I put in now can be tied into the new service later.

Thanks for the input.

 

[celtic]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

Originally posted by jeff43222:
The only fused subpanel that needs to be changed out ...At this point, I see no good reason to mess with them.

..you will when you open the covers and count the double and tripled up ckts on one fuse.

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

But if I don't open the covers, everything's fine, right?

 

[celtic]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

Originally posted by jeff43222:
But if I don't open the covers, everything's fine, right?

You can't make the swap w/o the covers open , look under the hood before you give a price.


I got burned twice last because I didn't perform my "due diligence"....learn from MY mistake and make an accurate evaluation.


While I agree that you could probably just swap out the 4 ckt panel w/o any major blunders (on time/price), changing it all will surely look more professional and be "value engineered" for a service upgrade.

 

[coppertreeelectric]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

In my opinion and looking at this project hind sight, I would do the following. Change the ML panel out, do what ever you need to do on the upgrade, then remove the 4 fuse sub and replace it with a J-box of sufficient size. Feed the ckts that were in the sub-panel from the main making your connections at the new J-box. Use your basic EC skills to see what size breaker each of the four ckts should be on. Usually when I change out a fused main panel I am left with more then enough breakers to utilize.

I would eliminate the sub. In the old days the mains didn?t have room for all the ckts that are required these days, and this required the frequent use of sub-panels. If it?s not that difficult to pull 4 ckts from the main to the sub I would go for it. Get rid of the fuses all together. I don?t see a point in upgrading half of the house.

Again, I am looking at this with hind sight, so don?t take it personally if what I have said cannot be accomplished without major damage.

Steve

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

The plot thickens...

I was planning on swapping out the 4-fuse sub for breakers, but when I talked to the homeowner last night, she said her husband said he wants all fuses out and replaced with breakers, but not upgrade the service.

I'm still waiting to hear from the inspector as to whether it's permissible to do a same-size swap of the 60A main fuse box for a MCB panelboard. I suspect they won't allow it; at least one other city in the area explicitly forbids this.

Curious as to whether it's allowed in other parts of the country.

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade



[ May 25, 2005, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: jeff43222 ]

 

[tshea]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

jeff43222 said:

I'm still waiting to hear from the inspector as to whether it's permissible to do a same-size swap of the 60A main fuse box for a MCB panelboard. I suspect they won't allow it; at least one other city in the area explicitly forbids this.

Curious as to whether it's allowed in other parts of the country.

ONLY in the event of an emergency. As in the fuse box melts down at night in the middle of winter or some other crazy reason.
Then the upgrade to at least 100Amps is probably warranted.

 

[petersonra]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

why do pople make up moronic rules like this? This just encourages people to do something less safe like do it themselves, or leave the old fuse box in place.

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

I talked to an inspector in one city that forbids it, and it seems that the city inspections department's policies in this regard are geared toward making property owners bring outdated and inadequate services/wiring into the modern area. He told me that if they didn't have such policies, ancient installations would stay ancient forever. They take it a little to the extreme, though -- a simple panel swap triggers an ordinance that requires bringing lots of stuff in the house up to code.

 

[coppertreeelectric]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

a simple panel swap triggers an ordinance that requires bringing lots of stuff in the house up to code.

This should really not be the case. You shouldn?t have to bring anything other the service equipment up to code. Unless you open the walls in the house there is no need to change anything. At least in NY you don?t have to unless 50% of walls have been opened. It may be up to the local building codes to do so but it?s not a NEC issue.

 

[mdshunk]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

In my area (central PA), if I replace any piece of the service equipment on a 60 amp service, the whole service gets changed to 100 amp, minimum. If this were my prospective job, I would be permitted to monkey with the subpanels, but not the main service panel. I suspect that all these little subs are double, triple, and quadrouple lugged in the service panel already, and there would be no good way to change the subs only without a true 100 amp service upgrade.

My personal opinion, there's just too much work out there to fuss with stuff like this. Recommend the upgrade or tell them to have a nice life. I have a feeling if you ran a demand load calc and printed it out, that might go a long way towards twisting their arm.

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

Originally posted by coppertreeelectric:

a simple panel swap triggers an ordinance that requires bringing lots of stuff in the house up to code.

This should really not be the case. You shouldn?t have to bring anything other the service equipment up to code. Unless you open the walls in the house there is no need to change anything. At least in NY you don?t have to unless 50% of walls have been opened. It may be up to the local building codes to do so but it?s not a NEC issue.

I know it's not an NEC issue; the ordinance in question has to do with the local "housing maintenance code." In that city, messing with the main panel/box for any reason other than a minor repair triggers the ordinance. The ordinance requires a certain number of receptacles/sq. ft. in all rooms, at least two circuits and three duplex receptacles in the kitchen (no mention of placement or circuit size, though), hardwired smokes, 20A laundry circuit, all bathroom receptacles must have GFCIs, and a bunch of other requirements. I don't usually work in that city, fortunately. There's a similar but less extensive ordinance where I usually work, but it is only triggered by an increase in service amperage.

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

Originally posted by mdshunk:
In my area (central PA), if I replace any piece of the service equipment on a 60 amp service, the whole service gets changed to 100 amp, minimum. If this were my prospective job, I would be permitted to monkey with the subpanels, but not the main service panel. I suspect that all these little subs are double, triple, and quadrouple lugged in the service panel already, and there would be no good way to change the subs only without a true 100 amp service upgrade.

My personal opinion, there's just too much work out there to fuss with stuff like this. Recommend the upgrade or tell them to have a nice life. I have a feeling if you ran a demand load calc and printed it out, that might go a long way towards twisting their arm.

I agree that an upgrade is a good idea. Having a 40A range plus a 30A A/C circuit on a 60A service is reason enough without even getting into the likely multi-lugged connections and other issues.

Doing an upgrade on this house would be a nightmare, though. Service entrance is overhead from the alley in the back, and it enters the wall on the second floor (no outside mast/conduit, just the weatherhead sticking out of the wall). The wires make their way down to the basement inside the walls, all of which are inaccessible on the first floor because of the huge porch (windows all around) built on the back of the house. The only upgrade options I see involve a lot of demo/repair or moving the panel to a completely different location, having to relocate all the circuit homeruns, and putting in an outside disconnect switch. Neither option would be all that affordable.

All the homeowner originally wanted was to get her basement bathroom separated from the light switch at the top of the stairs, but there's no legal way for me to do it without getting involved in all this other stuff. I'm just trying to find the most economical way to solve her problem. I could easily see a 100A upgrade on this house being in the $3000 range, and I don't think she can afford that.

[ May 25, 2005, 10:11 PM: Message edited by: jeff43222 ]

 

[mdshunk]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

Jeeze... talk about a situation where you can't win. Customer calls you to "fix a light" and you present them with a $3000 proposal. Customer tells all the friends and relatives you wanted 3 grand to fix a light. Option 2, you tell the customer you can't do the work. Customer tells Uncle Joe, and he proclaims how "stupid" you must be, seperates the light from the bathroom and he is the "smart" hero.

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Avoiding a service upgrade

I hadn't really thought about it from that angle, but thanks for pointing it out. I feel much better now!

[ May 26, 2005, 12:21 AM: Message edited by: jeff43222 ]