Last week I changed a main panel in a nearby house. The existing panel was an old wooden box type with porcelain rewireable fuses, and a separate voltage ELCB. The whole lot came out to be replaced with a modern C/B panel and main GFCI. The chap was most happy that I could do the whole changeover live and avoid a call-out charge from the utility.

Talk about being careless though. A couple of days ago he called me back, as during his on-going renovation work he managed to put a plasterboard screw straight into the main service cable.

He couldn't have gotten it closer to dead center of the cable if he'd been aiming for it! Said there was "One h*** of a bang!" I told him I wasn't surprised and to be grateful that he's still around to pay the PoCo call-out charge PLUS their labor & material for a new feeder.

I suspect he'll be rather more careful in future!