I was inspecting a rural home that is nearly 100yrs old, has 200amp service, has had an addition and upgrades throughout the home.
I walk into the basement and there are 2 panels side by side. I see that the SEC are coming through the basement wall into the right panel and there is a whip feeding the left panel. I open up the panels and the panel on the right does not have a main disconnect but the panel on the left does.
One of the breakers on the right panel is marked as “House Main” and those conductors are feeding the left panel through the whip. It appears that all of the other breakers in the right panel are for the larger equipment in the house like the ac, range, well pump, sub panel in the garage along with a couple small circuits. I also could not find an obvious disconnect for the panel on the right.
With all of that being said the electrical upgrades were done appx 7yrs ago and appeared to be a fairly clean job as far as connections, support and appearances go. I know that doesnt really matter, just trying to paint the picture.
I know its broad but what do you think of this configuration?
It looks like the right side panel is missing a required main breaker and the left side should be considered a subpanel. One little clue that this might be amateur work before you even remove the cover is the plastic wire anchors. I rarely if ever see pros using those.
Got ya. I am pretty much thinking the same and just wanted to make sure. Why wouldn’t they have just made one clean panel? Also, what do you like to see in place of the plastic anchors?
Besides the missing main disconnect, the main concern is bonding and grounding. It looks like the neutrals and ground wires are bonded in the right panel.
As posted by Jim Milby, it is a 3 phase panel, and based on the open spaces is 120/240V 3Ø, so the center/ “B” phase should be marked orange, the panel is a older QO design built before SQ D cheaped out their panels, so is at least 30 years old. Although it is unused, the single pole breaker below the top 2 pole breaker on the right, should not be there, the high leg (B phase) is a nominal 208 volts, and standard 120/240V slash rated breakers cannot be used on that phase because the voltage exceeds the lower of the 2 rated voltages.
Did the house have a backup Generator? Perhaps that is where you would find the main disconnect. That would allow the “house main” to be shut off and power would then only go to the big items in the house?
In Canada we are seeing more and more of those plastic wire clips being used. I questioned on electrician on it and he said they like them because there is less chance of wire pinch or crowding too many conductors under one staple.
Insulated staples have become more popular with the advent of AFCI protection. Pre-AFCI if you over drove a metal staple and it nicked the neutral and the bare EGC nothing would happen and the circuit would operate as if there was no problem. Now if that happens breaker will trip and then you have to go and find that bad staple which may be behind a wall.
