Can I change an old service panel to a sub panel?

[SJacobitti]

Project history: House froze up last February and some of the electrical was affected. The house is in upstate NY and the electrical system is for the most part very old but still in OK condition. However, they circuits are not grounded. Existing panel has breakers, not fuses. Some of the old cable, was damaged and needs to be replaced, but more than half was not affected. So far to date we have added a disconnect box to the exterior of the house. Installed a new main panel in the basement that will feed the new circuits on the first floor as well as a sub-panel on the second floor. This made sense since there were so many circuits upstairs, we decided to minimize the number of cables from basement to 2nd floor.


Questions are:

1- Can the existing old panel be feed as a sub panel from the new panel in the basement, knowing that there are circuits that are not grounded. Can we utilize an AFCI in the new panel to protect the older exiting panel. This existing panel feeds the unaffected circuits upstairs.

2- To minimize the amount of work necessary to feed all the affected devises, can we add a GFCI receptacle to the first devise in the string and maintain the existing non grounded devices. The new sub panel will be feed with an AFCI breaker. i.e., 4 receptacles in the room, tied together. can the first one have a GFCI installed? Will that protect the rest?

Basically, we are trying to minimizing the amount of work to the circuits that were not directly affected by the freeze and flood.

Any guidance will be greatly appreciated.....And, please ask questions if I’m not being clear…..

 

[Dennis Alwon]

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