Vandalised Panelbox

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fisherman

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Lake Placid , Florida
Thieves broke into a customer's home. They opened up the panel, disconnected all the romex from the breakers and cut them, leaving 2" to 3" of each romex in the panelbox. I'm trying to think of ways to approach this job. I've thought about splicing the low load circuits and running new wire to the A/C , stove, etc. Any ideas would be appreciated.
 
I would splice them in the panel. If you feel that this would end up being a mess then I would mount a large pull box above the panel and run a few conduit nipples into the panel. This is a lot more work but may end up being a neater installation.
 
I would install a junction box or gutter above and below the panel and make my splices in there. You could even mount terminal blocks if you don't want to use wirenuts.

This would also be a good opportunity to recomend installing transfer switches for a back-up generator. :)
 
If I seen that at a loadcenter, my first thought would be they had someone put in a new load center and they din't pay him, who else would break in, and just go to the panel.
 
satcom said:
If I seen that at a loadcenter, my first thought would be they had someone put in a new load center and they din't pay him.
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If that was the case, they'd have cut the wires directly against the connectors.
 
satcom said:
If I seen that at a loadcenter, my first thought would be they had someone put in a new load center and they din't pay him, who else would break in, and just go to the panel.
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It wasn't a new panel. The owners had just moved out of the home into their new home. The thieves also made off with their A/C unit, ripped the weatherhead and metercan down.
 
satcom said:
If I seen that at a loadcenter, my first thought would be they had someone put in a new load center and they din't pay him, who else would break in, and just go to the panel.
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I agree this is vandalism for whatever reason. If it were a derelict home it could be someone getting a dollar's worth of copper but to break into someone's home and go right for the panel, I have never herd of this ( always something more valuable to steal, faster & easier ).

A new load center would be a good indication of recent electrical work.

A few years back I had to deal with a vandal on a commercial job, it was a maintenance man that had been fired. He would replace fuses to the boiler system with bad ones, after the locks were changed he sawed a lock off and that is breaking and entering.

Edit: You didn't tell us about the other things that were missing.
 
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satcom said:
If I seen that at a loadcenter, my first thought would be they had someone put in a new load center and they din't pay him, who else would break in, and just go to the panel.
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I agree...there is a specific intention here. Who DOES that?
 
I worked in a high rise apt building during construction. One of the electricians got layed off. The next morning about 100 panels had all their wires cut out except the feeders. He left the BC wires just long enough so they could be spliced and extended to reach the CB's and neutral bar.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
You may call this vandalism but it has all the makings of a spite job to me. Someone was pretty revengeful.
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It's hard to envision a layperson doing this...
 
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