First time I have seen a 100amp fuse panel. I have seen many rated for 100 on the cover but always had a 60 amp pull out.
I enjoyed inspecting this panel. Not bad for back in 1961. I was 1 year (young)
I thought it looked pretty good except for the double taps.
The stove circuit wasnt even being used. Is there anyway to keep this panel?
I did tell her insurance companies are funny about fuses and if she needed to add on she doesnt have any extra circuits.
Also the lack of circuits. What is the minumum amount of circuits in a panel these days? I guess I should just go look in the code check and quit bothering you guys.
The buyer had already recieved 1500 in escrow for updating the electrical.
Even today 100A can be installed in a dwelling…as the minimum allowed and guess what…It can be a fuse panel even today and not be a problem.
If the range is not being used it could most certainly feed a sub-panel and get a few more circuits out of it…in fact most 100A panels today have 20 circuit breaker spaces…
Basically from what I can tell their must be a gas stove envolved and chances are gas furnace and so on…so it would mean no draw really on this panel other than normal branch circuit loads.
While I do like breakers…fuses can be fine…in fact reset fuses will work as well to bring a modern flare to the panel yet without the upgrade costs.
Seems like I have been talking myself out of ALOT of service changes lately but again fuses are safe…now I am not going into the double taps and so on and other issues…YOU only asked if the panel could be salvaged…and yes it can.
Hope this answers your questions…to upgrade this panel would probably cost about 1,200- 1,500…and that would take it from 100A to 200A…but again with no need for additional circuits and as long as the proper fuses are in the enclosure…I do not see a real rush to replace…
1.) The screws on the neutral bar are not installed correctly, many are installed counter-clockwise and the “Hook” itself is incorrect.
2.) Suggest adding an Additional "grounding electrode " like a ground rod as in most of these old homes the water pipe was the only grounding electrode.
3.) Obviously the double taps…which is an easy fix…
4.) Missing connectors on the NM at the bottom of the panel
5.) Excessive NM jacket in the panel…looks nasty !..lol
Insurance companies here won’t issue insurance on our homes if there are fuses in the electric panels. They want the new stuff that is more difficult to tamper with, although I did find one the other day where the owner had wired the breaker into the on position. A very nice job. He stated that the breaker kept tripping. Clueless? Oh, well.
Why do people think fuses are bad?
If you have the proper type S adapter a fuse is a lot safer than a breaker (think FPE). A bad fuse fails “open”, a bad breaker has a 50:50 chance of failing “closed”. Once that type S adapter is installed it is virtually impossible to increase the size of the overcurrent device. A breaker can be swapped out easily.
The only real down side is the effort necessary to renew the fuse when it blows versus flipping a breaker but if you are blowing fuses you should be finding out why, not simply flipping the breaker and trying again.
BTW just because an old fuse panel has a 60a pull out may not indicate that it is a 60a service. This is probably a split bus panel, with other pull outs for 240v loads.
