Unmarked fuses

[Jim Joyce]

These "fuses" appear to be unmarked. Any idea as to their current carrying capacity?

LOL

[Ed Pawlowski]

Generic brand. Once size fits all.

Looking at the box outside I wonder if the box is just being incorrectly used as a junction box and wires go to a fuse or breaker in the panel.

Quick disconnect. Its a feature!

[Anonymous]

Would it not be safer if they used PVC pipe ? 🙄

[gfretwell]

If it is just a disconnect, that is perfectly legal, as long as there is an OC device upstream. In fact they make "listed" pullouts that are electrically identical. You might have one on your AC as we speak. They also make "breakers" that are just switches for that same purpose. (local disconnects). I have a bunch of them. You can tell because there are no (amp rating) numbers on the handle.

[Jim Joyce]

It was in a home inspector article so I assumed it was improper, but I guess it depends on some additional factors.

[dpb]

Electrically, agree.

Does it not violate the Code "workmanship" clause in that the pieces of pipe won't be listed by box manufacturer as being valid parts?

I get the disconnect; I don't see why not just use the fuses, though. What would it hurt -- unless it was tripping the properly-sized fuses and this is a bypass.

[gfretwell]

Home inspectors? Ha, The joke of the inspecting community. Actually that picture has been around quite a while in different venues.

Most HIs don't have a clue what the codes really are. I suppose they are OK for spotting crooked door jambs and missing device covers but I would not trust them on code issues Just as a hoot I took the 25 question test to get a HACHI certification and for $400, I could be a home inspector. The test was a joke with at least one wrong answer given in reference to the NEC, the answer given being at least 3 cycles behind at the time.

Things Home Inspectors thought were fine

[gfretwell]

As I said in my note to Joyce, this picture has been bouncing around for decades and it was pulled from a disconnect, not the branch circuit overcurrent device. Certainly it is a 110.3(B) violation (not a listed part for that fuse holder) but not a particular safety issue.

[dpb]

Oh. OK, I didn't see that part.

[Clare Snyder]

It appears to be an :unfused disconnect" for an air conditioner - the actual fusing being done at the panel. Not an unheard of "bodge" - but the ones I've seen are generally soldered or rivetted or bolted

[Clare Snyder]

A REQUIRED feature - at least up here.

Generally something like or more likely

[Clare Snyder]

The "bodge" shown would never pass inspection but it is perfectly functional and reasonably safe - I've seen them before.

[TimR]

A few years back I worked in a factory that was serious about lockout tagout Zero Energy State stuff. That was fairly new 20 years ago, not everybody enforced it to the extent of firing employees for the first violation.

But what we found was that the standard disconnects where you pull a lever did not stand up to constant switching as we did machine adjustments. And they sometimes failed catastrophically, and we had a few injuries.

Using copper pipe like that makes me cringe a bit but it's possibly safer than pulling a lever.

Quick veer off topic: working on my shed this weekend I had to move an outlet to replace a stud. I pulled the disconnect lever on the main subpanel. Put a meter on the outlet, it's still live. Really? Lights are out, nothing works, but that outlet was hot. So I pulled the fuse block out, looks exactly like that piece in the OPs photo, now the circuit was dead. Just goes to show, always check.

[dpb]

On 6/29/2020 7:54 AM, TimR wrote: ...

So IOW you have two feeds to or in this shed?

[TimR]

One feed, two panel boxes, at first glance it looks like the main one is just a fuse and the smaller one a disconnect, and apparently most of the circuits are that way, but at least one circuit bypasses the smaller panel. I didn't know that until this week.

[gfretwell]

It sounds like there might have just been that one branch circuit running out there originally and they added the other panel, not abandoning the original circuit or you have a split bus panel. The latter is not unusual with panels that use those pull outs. Some times they exploited the "6 disconnect" rule and you had to pull all 6 pull outs to kill the panel.

[TimR]

That makes sense. At some point the shed received an addition that doubled its size, and the two boxes are totally different styles. There are two pullout fuse blocks in the box I'm calling the "main," but only one fuse block is in use, the other is upside down.

[gfretwell]

Some day when you have some time you should map what controls what and label everything.