wirebender
Senior Member
- Location
- North Central Texas
Got a call the other day from a man who said he had lost power to one of his electrical panels. Went to check it out and found a #10 feed to the lugs in this panel in the garage.
No power, so I go to check the main panel and find an old six space bulldog panel with 2 single pole 20A and 4 single pole 15A pushbutton breakers, no two poles.
I open this panel and find some #8 aluminum and #12 copper tied into the lugs with the service entrance conductors.
No #10 at all.
Up into the attic I go and find this #12 cable.
Which had been spliced to this #10 cable. Burnt completely in two.
Which was feeding the sub panel that supplied a dryer, 2 GDOs, garage receptacles (work bench) and outside receptacles which had a ton of Xmas lights plugged in.
Not the new small ones either, the old big ones.
I'm talking all around the yard, up in the tree, framing the roof and lit up reindeer and Santa.
All on unfused #12.
It's amazing the house didn't burn. You could smell it as soon as you started up the attic ladder.
I gave a price for an upgrade and fix everything and of course he asked if there wasn't any cheaper way around this and I told him "No sir, there is no safe way to get power to this panel and I couldn't live with myself if you were to burn up after I did something like that."
He got the point and agreed to an upgrade.
Had to abandon the service panel since it was in a clothes closet so we put 150A meter base and 150A disco and fed a new 200a panel (they didn't have a 150 in stock :roll
at the old sub panel location and re-fed the circuits that were in the old service panel.
This is one of the things that me proud to be an electrician, knowing that I can make at least a small part of this world a little bit safer place to live in.
Happy Holidays, Everyone.
No power, so I go to check the main panel and find an old six space bulldog panel with 2 single pole 20A and 4 single pole 15A pushbutton breakers, no two poles.
I open this panel and find some #8 aluminum and #12 copper tied into the lugs with the service entrance conductors.
No #10 at all.
Up into the attic I go and find this #12 cable.
Which had been spliced to this #10 cable. Burnt completely in two.
Which was feeding the sub panel that supplied a dryer, 2 GDOs, garage receptacles (work bench) and outside receptacles which had a ton of Xmas lights plugged in.
Not the new small ones either, the old big ones.
I'm talking all around the yard, up in the tree, framing the roof and lit up reindeer and Santa.
All on unfused #12.
It's amazing the house didn't burn. You could smell it as soon as you started up the attic ladder.
I gave a price for an upgrade and fix everything and of course he asked if there wasn't any cheaper way around this and I told him "No sir, there is no safe way to get power to this panel and I couldn't live with myself if you were to burn up after I did something like that."
He got the point and agreed to an upgrade.
Had to abandon the service panel since it was in a clothes closet so we put 150A meter base and 150A disco and fed a new 200a panel (they didn't have a 150 in stock :roll
at the old sub panel location and re-fed the circuits that were in the old service panel.
This is one of the things that me proud to be an electrician, knowing that I can make at least a small part of this world a little bit safer place to live in.
Happy Holidays, Everyone.
