Can one of you electrical fellers explain why the licensed electrican installed this. I have never observed this before got me scratching my head.* I have not observed this before am refering to the double red wires from the what appears to be a splice to the main lugs.*
However you slice it, it has to be wrong. My only guess is that the SEC coming form the meter is copper, and the two wires going to the breaker are aluminum. Lets see what Paul has to say.
Bill: it was all copper to copper no aluminum
That’s inexcusable. That’s an older (mid to late 80’s) model panel anyhow. How old is this work?
The connectors used are Insul-Link crimp sleeves. They are typically used by overhead linemen, and take a pretty specialized and accordingly expensive crimping tool and die. Is it possible that this was a repair of previously burned conductor ends done by the power company, such as they sometimes do as a “midnight courtesy”?
Marc the home was constructed Jan thru March of 1979 and what amazed me was the main feed was actually long enough to reach the lugs they had to fold them up to get them within the panel.
Okay, that jives. That panel syle went out in the mid to late 80’s.
That’s makes it even more silly then. Use 30 dollars worth of Insul-Link crimps and however much labor to do something non-compliant like that. The 225 amp breakers in that frame style are rated for two stranded copper conductors of the same gauge. That wasn’t a 225A main breaker, by chance, was it?
I have a theory on why this was done, but first a quick question. This home had electric heat, didn’t it?
Main was 200-amp and yes this home originally was total electric three furnaces and three hot water heaters but was changed to natural gas 1986 leaving one electric hot water heater in a detached building mother-in-law type with a thru the wall electric heat still in place.
There was a period of time in the 70’s when it was fashoinable with some contractors to do 200 amp services with two 100 amp panels when the home had electric heat. One panel was the “heat panel” and the other panel was the rest of the home. Here’s where my guess comes in. When you hang two 100’s off a 200 amp meter can, you run your 200 amp sized conductors into a gutter inside, and splice on 100 amp sized conductors down to each panel hanging off that gutter. They may have pre spliced the 100 amp sized conductors onto the 200 amp sized conductor in anticipation of doing this, then just installed one, 200 amp panel. The panel installer may have just left the little 100 amp tails on and paralleled then into the lugs because they bend much easier.
Again, this is just a guess, and a bit of historical trivia. Mostly, I like to type about interesting things.
You are right on so far good guessing I have another Pic I will post showing the split out 100 am-per with the tray with the same kind of splices