Installation of new breaker panel. Instead of removing the original fuse panel and running cables directly from meter to the “new” breaker panel, they ran 4 wire feeder cables from the pull out fuses to a back-fed breaker. They also removed the bonding strap from the neutral/ground bar. So grounding and grounded conductors are not separated, Or bonded to the breaker panel.
The installation and wiring at the breaker panel looks great, other than this.
I would think that since the main disconnect is in the fuse panel, that the breaker panel would now be considered a sub-panel and should be wired as such.
The feeder to the new panel from the existing pull-out fused disconnect is a 4-wire NM cable. This could be fixed by using separate EGC and neutral buses at the new sub-panel and terminating the conductors to the appropriate bus.
This has the feeling of a panel upgrade that was not fully completed. I’m wondering if the plan was to run new SEC from the meter to the new panel “eventually.”
Nice zooming! Looks like the black strap is connected to both busses, but the enclosure bonding strap is not connected. And it doesn’t look like either of the busses are mounted directly to the enclosure.
All of the circuits in this house are in that panel, except for one fused circuit that is only protecting One receptacle, the receptacle to the right of service panel.
There are no conductors connected to Any of the other fuse terminals.
At the very first I thought the fuse panel was just being used as a junction box, until I removed cover.
As far as the feeder size, it just depends on the fuse size at the fuse panel. But that’s why I think these feeders were just installed as a temporary measure until they could install new SECs’ from the meter.
And I did not pull out the fuses. I’m guessing 60 amps. IMO it would have been just as easy to install new SEC’s from meter than to go to the trouble they did. The service entrance and meter are rated for 100 amps. And the meter can is directly behind the fuse panel.
But I have no idea when the new panel was installed, it looked pretty recent. House is unoccupied, not a flip.
