No, there is no other panels here!

[hillbilly1]

A builder I do a lot of work for, called me saying he lost power in a Church basement he was replacing doors on. Old church, originally had a 60 amp service up front. Someone changed it to a small breaker box, and had two circuits in it. Everything good (good as it could be! LOL!) there. 200 amp breaker box in the basement with about 10 circuits in it. Everything good there. Ran a temp circuit to the closest fixture, everything worked again. Ok, maybe a buried j box in the Sheetrock ceiling? Every box was dead ended, every switch, every light! Got to be a bad splice somewhere above the ceiling. Finally found an old cable heading back to the panel. Got to be the home run! After cutting some sheet rock in the mechanical room, found it went up the wall above the panel, but not into the panel. Found a cut off piece of service cable coming down from the same spot. Go back upstairs behind the pulpit, did not see a panel anywhere. The builder got to looking, and said this a strange height this picture is at? He carefully takes it down, and what do you know! A small fuse box! 20 amp fuse blown. Replaced the fuse, everything works again! Found a 12-2 lugged to the 60 amp pull out that fed the panel up front! LOL!

 

[Buck Parrish]

Same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. Not a church, but otherwise the same. The panel I found had all 30s and a 30 was blown. I talked them into taking it out. Ran four circuits over to the newer service breaker panel. Done away with the old fuse box all together.

 

[garbo]

Worked at a large company that refused to purchase a circuit tracer gor the 6 man electric shop. So for tracing 120 volt circuits I installed a 1900 box with a 30 amp toggle switch along with an indicator power on lamp. In on position Switch shorted out the hot wire & grounded wire. Had to use it to locate & ID a receptacle. Plugged it in replaced receptacle and the 2 panels that feed large office had no tripped breakers. Removed covers and checked that every breaker was energised. After checking every panel within 500' finally went into security office and asked them if by chance they had a circuit breaker panel. Nope but lookrd around and foind a 4 circuit panel behind s picture.

 

[zbang]

The moment you're sure you've found all the panels, another will mysteriously pop into being behind a picture, an old refrigerator, or in an old basement room.

 

[Jraef]

The moment you're sure you've found all the panels, another will mysteriously pop into being behind a picture, an old refrigerator, or in an old basement room.

That's a "Murhy's Law" corollary for electricians!

 

[LarryFine]

I found one circuit for a kitchen in a grocery store was fed from a sub-panel in the office.

 

[Little Bill]

Worked at a large company that refused to purchase a circuit tracer gor the 6 man electric shop. So for tracing 120 volt circuits I installed a 1900 box with a 30 amp toggle switch along with an indicator power on lamp. In on position Switch shorted out the hot wire & grounded wire. Had to use it to locate & ID a receptacle. Plugged it in replaced receptacle and the 2 panels that feed large office had no tripped breakers. Removed covers and checked that every breaker was energised. After checking every panel within 500' finally went into security office and asked them if by chance they had a circuit breaker panel. Nope but lookrd around and foind a 4 circuit panel behind s picture.

Pretty bad way to find breakers, causing a bolted fault.

 

[zbang]

40 years ago, that was normal practice, but we didn't have the nifty tracer tools then.

 

[hillbilly1]

AIC was lower too back then.

 

[retirede]

AIC was lower too back then.

AFC?

 

[augie47]

Worked at a large company that refused to purchase a circuit tracer gor the 6 man electric shop. So for tracing 120 volt circuits I installed a 1900 box with a 30 amp toggle switch along with an indicator power on lamp. In on position Switch shorted out the hot wire & grounded wire. Had to use it to locate & ID a receptacle. Plugged it in replaced receptacle and the 2 panels that feed large office had no tripped breakers. Removed covers and checked that every breaker was energised. After checking every panel within 500' finally went into security office and asked them if by chance they had a circuit breaker panel. Nope but lookrd around and foind a 4 circuit panel behind s picture.

Lil Bill is correct.. dangerous method.
This is Russina Roulette with a switch One day you may find a circuit with high fault current and end up with a hand full of molten metal.
I know an electrician that used this method and happened across a circuit tapped to the service....bad result,

 

[hillbilly1]

AFC?

Basically same thing, fault current was lower, so lower AIC devices could be used. Later on they started using series rated devices because of the available fault current was increasing.