What would you do - Old main breaker problem

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PetrosA

PetrosA

Senior Member
Location
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
I was at a customer's house today and ran a line to the panel. Any time I open a panel, I check the connections at the main, and check the screw terminals on all the breakers just for safety. Well, one leg feeding the main was warm to the touch. IR reading showed 30?C on that leg and 24?C on the other with an ambient temp of 24?C. No AC on, so something had to be wrong in the main. In addition the handle was broken off, so if it had tripped the customer wouldn't be able to reset it. It was an old Crouse-Hinds 200A. My SH happened to have one on the shelf so I talked the lady into changing the breaker.

Once I got home I tore the old one apart. Looks like the loose lug caused light arcing and pitted the lug interior somewhat (there's a lug body that slips over a plate which feeds the breaker mechanism and the pitting was in the contact area between the plate and lug body) . If the handle had been ok, I think I probably could have just tightened the lugs and been done with it. What do you think of a quick fix like that on a (possibly) 35-40 year old breaker?
 
jaylectricity

jaylectricity

Senior Member
Location
Massachusetts
Occupation
licensed journeyman electrician
I agree with the rest. Consider the opportunity to get a good look at the old breaker and gain experience from it as a bonus to getting paid to replace it.
 
PetrosA

PetrosA

Senior Member
Location
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Thanks for the replies. I think had it not had a broken handle I would have just tightened it back up, but I guess I'm thinking now about age as a factor in general. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that for the most part, really old electrical gear was built rock solid, and aside from unsafe engineering (knife switches, etc.) most of the stuff I've ever torn out has pretty much been in perfect working order and I've even disassembled and repaired things like pushbutton switches because - I could. That's less true when you get to the stuff from the 60s and 70s, and definitely not true with most stuff made since. Here's a bell I cleaned up tonight for a family member in Boston. It's original to her apartment, and I'm guessing about 100 years old. The screws, terminals etc are all solid brass and polished up beautifully as did the steel bell. The black paint looks like someone tried to scrape wall paint off with a wire brush in a drill at one point. The gold logo is still all there. The coils inside are pristine with hardly a coating of dust. It works fine and sounds good. Quite a shock to see how well they used to make stuff...
 
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