Upgrading electrical service

That's my highly non-professional opinion. FWIW.

nate

I'm actually in the process of running those home runs now. I'm also repacing any 15 amp recepticals and switches on those circuits with the 20 amp variety as well. My problem with this is that I'm fairly certain (at least with the one guy I had look at it) the person probably won't accept "my" work. Again, probably because a truck payment is due :-)

So I probably should "code" the existing wiring to the current panel and leave a service "loop" on the current upgraded runs then contact and electrician?

thanks for the response. Man, I do admire some of you guys doing this stuff - I don't think I could get away with this in Little Rhody though. National Grid, I'm fairly sure, will only deal with a licensed electrician on the "change over" at the meter. I consider myself a fairly high end "DIY"er but I think I have hit my limit with the main and meter cut over.

Pete, just curious, why did you run your wire outside the wall in that "shop" area? Looks like you had to sheerock anyway so why not run behind the wall with NM-B rather than conduit with I assume THHN?

Tell the guy you only want a new service panel and nothing more, PERIOD. Tell the guy this is all you can afford and you have an out of town friend or brother who is an electrician and will take care of adding more circuits later. If he states there are code violations, have him put them all in writing. Then get more estimates, and if the guys says code violations, get them in writing, etc....

I did lots if replacement panel upgrades. If I could, I installed a new panel right next to the old one so the smaller cables could be easily wired back into the new panel. On a few occasions I'd have to lift the old panel, hang it from the ceiling joists, run temporaty power to it, and put the new panel in the exact same place. Better yet, find when the homeowners will be away for the day, be sure their freezer and fridge get some ice blocks and rip out the old panel completely. Install new panel in same place, get power from the source connected, and then one by one reconnect the individual house cables. This especially was helpful when there was conduit feeds to the house, and the area I worked in, that was common in all older homes prior to the 70's. Whenever I saw a fuse with two wires on it, that became 2 circuits immediately, which helped split the circuits a little at only a few extra bucks for the breakers. I always explained things like this to the owner.

Granpa

Ease of changes, additions, serviceability and it also minimizes breaks in the 5/8" fire code sheetrock. Industrial style basically.

Have you run out of capacity, or just run out of spaces? (have to do a load analysis to really answer that) If just the former, and after rereading your post I'm pretty sure it is, install a 100A main-lug load panel next to the breaker box. Either tap it into the main bus after the main fuses, or run it off the dryer or range fuse with 75A fuses and move the dryer or range circuit to the new subpanel. (the dryer circuit will probably be easier) If the dryer or range circuit is 3 wires instead of 4, it cannot be fed from a subpanel; you'd have to convert it to 4 wires (or ignore this rule, which I'm not recommending)

Bob

A big part of the question is why do you want to upgrade? How old is your current wiring (If it is a 100 amp box it should not be too old)?

Local codes vary greatly. I suggest you will have to ask locally.

When I upgraded my old service (two 30 amp boxes T&K, etc.) I had a friend, professional check out what I had planed first. He agreed with the plan, then I checked with the power company to see what they required and then with the city inspectors. Everything went well with two exceptions: The inspector showed up a day early while I was at work and I had to hurry home and they had required that I hook up the new drop to my wiring with some fancy expensive clamps (live) I did not like working with 240V live, but it went OK. The next day they came along cut my clamps out and put their clamps on. crazy. In any case it all worked with a lot of research before starting.

It's a spaces issue. I don't believe I'm anywhere near capacity as this is the first time any electrical "capacity" has been added since the original wiring was done on the house and there has never been a capacity issue yet so it is servicing what it was originally rated for minus an electric range because I switched to gas when I bought the house (from my parents). So in effect it is servicing "less" than it was originally rated for (though I have kept the range wiring in place in case when I sell the house the buyer would want that instead of gas so I consider it still "in service" even though it is not used).

The only extra "capacity" I want to add is a 15 amp circuit becase I am adding recessed lighting in the kitchen and figured I probably should run that on a seperate line as the existing light was run on the same circuit as the refridgerator. My thinking was that I would just break those two lines up and dedicate a line to the refridge and add the extra 15 dedicated just to lighting (7 total lights).

At this point I'm strongly thinking of doing what you are suggesting or just having my 100 amp fuse box upgraded to a breaker box with more spaces. The existing fuse panel only allows for about 12 fuses (spaces) and that is my problem.

It is strictly because I am out of space to add another fuse (circuit). The fuse panel only accomodates around 12 fuses I believe (I'm not in front of it right now but I believe it's 6 per side. The wiring is fairly new. It's all NM-B wiring - the house was built in the 70's.

zxcvbob covers a subpanel. You can use a main-lug subpanel or can leave a 100A main breaker. Overcurrent protection is in the fusebox. The connection can be to the bus of the fuse box downstream from the main fuses, but you probably don't have a connection to the bus available. Next best is a range/stove connection which is likely a 'pullout' which can take 2 60A fuses. The wiring to the subpanel would then be 60A.

Sounds code to me. May not be worth the effort to move all the circuits over. And there may not be any way to get to the bus of the fusebox to connect for 100A.

If the fusebox is replaced with a 100A circuit breaker panel the existing wires from the meter may be too short to reach the circuit breaker and have to be replaced.

If the fusebox is replaced with 200A everything on the service side is likely to have to be replaced including the meter box if it is not rated

Considerations I don't remember mentioned - permits and inspection required? Can homeowner (you) do the work? Is the inspector a jerk? Asking the inspector questions can avoid problems later. But inspectors may be overworked and not appreciate questions. Or may not appreciate non-electricians.

You sound like you know what you are doing. Knowing your limits is part of that. A homeowner may certainly be competent to changeout a service to 200A, but there are a lot of unique gotchas for a service.

You can get "half-width" breakers. With those, you can essentially double the number of circuits in the box.

Just gotta have a big enough hammer....

;-]

Well - that I know - but then again those rectangular breakers are hard to fit into the existing round fuse sockets ;-)

Joseph Meehan wrote:

I will never understand the benefit of requiring the use of Insulating Displacing Taps to energize the new service entry cable on a heavy up. No one has offered a justification for the obvious danger and the outrageous expense of the IDT connectors. The power company installers test the new cable prior to tying in the service conductors to the utility supply wiring anyway so were is the benefit in requiring those high priced taps?

-- Tom Horne

"This alternating current stuff is just a fad. It is much too dangerous for general use." Thomas Alva Edison

Ok - I sort of see what your saying. Leave the 100 amp fuses in place as the "main break" point and wire into the pullouts for the range. I haven't looked at what those fuses are, I do know there are two piggied on the pullout. But shouldn't I still have a 60 amp break as the main sub break? Or your saying I keep the 60 amp fuse in place and wire the load off of that so that that stays in place and becomes the defacto 60 amp break for the subpanel? That way theh 100 amp break at the sub is not used.

Right, how would I connect the wire to the bus. 100amp will need a big wire - haven't looked at the code for anything that big.

good point. Didn't think of that.

I personally don't want to deal with the permit process. If I do it myself I don't need to pull the permit. But I won't touch the box - so that will require both a permit and qualified electritian. It's a quandry. I need to call some electritians I think and go with full replacement of the 100amp fuse with a new 100 amp box. That's what I'm leaning to right now.

And that's the quandry. Grrr. As long as I can get what I need done for under 1500 then I'm all set - it's in the budget. But I think I'm going to have a time with that. I won't touch the box - I'll deal with anything else electrical but that I'm frankly afraid of. I'll deal with anything I can fully disconect - not something that can kill that easily. If worse comes to worse I suppose I can pull the 240 to the range and use that "capacity" for my lights and worry about upgrading later.

:-)

Ah, makes sense in a shop senario.

Such breakers cannot be used were the panel is not listed to use them. Installing replacement use only breakers in a CTL panel board is a code violation that can cause real trouble if it leads to any problem later on because it will stick out like a soar thumb to a trained fire cause investigator. Don't risk becoming one of the unlucky few whose insurance coverage is voided by doing bad work.

-- Tom Horne

"This alternating current stuff is just a fad. It is much too dangerous for general use." Thomas Alva Edison