Worst breaker panel location contest

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goldstar

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If ever there were a contest for the worst breaker panel location, this one has a strong chance of being the winner. Can you imagine doing a service upgrade or even adding a branch circuit ?

 
Inside the shower would be number 1 in my book.
Then this one over the range.

I saw one under a metal cabinet at a fast food place.
 
Same realtor bought a house and the panel was in the wall, hidden behind paneling which backed a built in bookcase. To get to the panel one had to remove everything from a couple shelves, pick up the shelves and take them out then tip out a piece of paneling to expose the panel.
 
Here is my all time favorite sub panel. Take you back to 1950 when this thing was thought to be a good idea...someone is filling the sink to do dishes and the phone rings...sink has no overflow except to well overflow :lol:

IMG_0158_zpsf1774b6f.jpg
 
RLyons said:
Here is my all time favorite sub panel. Take you back to 1950 when this thing was thought to be a good idea...someone is filling the sink to do dishes and the phone rings...sink has no overflow except to well overflow :lol:
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That's a good one too. The sad part about the one I posted is that it's the third one I found in the same community. It's a lake community and many people built their own houses way back when. I don't think the issue is so much "why did you locate the breaker panel there" as much as it is "why did you locate the kitchen there". They could just as easily have located the breaker panel in the basement (even though it's slightly higher than a crawl space).
 
The worst one i had was a old residence that the new kitchen remodel involved putting cabinets over the panel. At leats they cut the back of the cabinet outand made the shelves removable but you still were working in a cabinet to access anything in the panel
 
The Electrican said:
The worst one i had was a old residence that the new kitchen remodel involved putting cabinets over the panel. At leats they cut the back of the cabinet outand made the shelves removable but you still were working in a cabinet to access anything in the panel
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I have a customer whose Adirondack cottage might've had the same remodeler. You could open the panel door by taking out the dishes and removing the shelves. To get the cover off you had to drop the cabinet.
 
K8MHZ said:
Same realtor bought a house and the panel was in the wall, hidden behind paneling which backed a built in bookcase. To get to the panel one had to remove everything from a couple shelves, pick up the shelves and take them out then tip out a piece of paneling to expose the panel.
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The original internal main panel in a 1920's cottage (K&T) which was added to a couple of times, ended up being a breaker subpanel replacing original fuses, located in the remodeled kitchen. Behind an upper cabinet in the corner. As with the bookcase, empty the dishes out of the cabinet, remove one shelf and unscrew a wood panel at the back of the cabinet to access the breakers.
However, actually removing the panel front cover to do any work or wiring will require taking the cabinet off the wall, so I think mine tops yours. :(

PS: The home inspector could not find it, although there was a breaker in the new main labelled "Kitchen Subpanel", so he did not write it up for the unfortunate purchaser.
 
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I had a house in Seattle that was built in 1906 without electricity, it was added probably some time in the 1910s. The breaker panel was cut-in on the outside wall in the back and although they used what was probably a WP box, they mounted it deep into the siding, so the cover would not fully close. I bought the house in 1985 and it had been that way all along, breakers exposed to the weather. Of course I bypassed it and put in a new indoor service, but Seattle City Light did not re-use the old service drop, they just gave me a new one. When I went to remove the old one, it was still live on the line side of the old meter socket! After 3 years of harassing them to kill it, I gave up and nailed a big box over the whole thing. When I went to sell the house, that got red-tagged of course, and that finally got SCL to disconnect the damned wires at the pole.

Here's one a friend in Texas sent me from a general contractor that did his deck, but used as an example of bad decisions...

undergound electrical panel 2.jpg
underground electric panel 1.jpg
 
Jraef said:
I had a house in Seattle that was built in 1906 without electricity, it was added probably some time in the 1910s. The breaker panel was cut-in on the outside wall in the back and although they used what was probably a WP box, they mounted it deep into the siding, so the cover would not fully close. I bought the house in 1985 and it had been that way all along, breakers exposed to the weather. Of course I bypassed it and put in a new indoor service, but Seattle City Light did not re-use the old service drop, they just gave me a new one. When I went to remove the old one, it was still live on the line side of the old meter socket! After 3 years of harassing them to kill it, I gave up and nailed a big box over the whole thing. When I went to sell the house, that got red-tagged of course, and that finally got SCL to disconnect the damned wires at the pole.

Here's one a friend in Texas sent me from a general contractor that did his deck, but used as an example of bad decisions...

View attachment 9173
View attachment 9174
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What moron did this. What made this guy think it was ok.
 
Seen a few where a kitchen remodel ended up putting panel inside a cabinet similar to what others have mentioned.

Seen a few where there was only a few inches of clearance in front of the panel.

Had a case one time with a mobile/manufactured home sitting on cinder block foundation where there was a panel in the crawlspace below the home. That may not have been the worst thing, but I was there to find out why an outbuilding had no power, determined it must somehow tie into the house in the crawlspace, opened the crawlspace door and crawlspace was full of water - likely a plumbing leak was the cause. I refused to go in until they resolved the water issue but could see a panel on the wall below where the "house panel" was located. Never got called back so I don't know any more details about it.
 
Under the bathroom sink

Under the bathroom sink

A lake house.. Actually a 1950's mobile home with a house built around it. A 200 Wadsworth panel is located under the bathroom vanity. A #6 bare neutral is provided by the POCO.
 
rt66electric said:
A lake house.. Actually a 1950's mobile home with a house built around it. A 200 Wadsworth panel is located under the bathroom vanity. A #6 bare neutral is provided by the POCO.
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Nothing wrong with the bare neutral - if it is a service conductor.

It likely needs to be 4 AWG at the smallest though.
 
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