ECN Electrical Forum
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I live in a house built in 1943, original panels were 2- SQ D 2-pole Multibreaker load centers nippled together over the kitchen counter providing the generous sum of 4 circuits in the entire house, the last of which was removed in the early 1980's, The SQ D, Cutler-Hammer XO replaced the Multibreakers which in turn was obsolete by about 1960, replaced by SQ D QO & Cutler-Hammer type CH series.

Some raintite enclosures were avail in the 50's but IMO due to the lack of inspections or other factors a lot of "indoor" equipment was used outdoors because no one made them use the correct gear or build a dog house around it.

The 'doghouse' was a popular way of 'enclosing' gear around here a while back. Pc. of plywood & a few shingles, wow...it's protected.

Here in TX the 2 most common ways of enclosing the panels were to mount the meter and panel under the porch roof near the ceiling, sometimes the meter would be mounted outside with the panel under the roof. (common with screen porches) The other common mount was the meter was surface mounted on the side of the house with the panel mounted below, bolted to the back side of the inside wall.(shiplap) A wood or plywood door covered access to the panel. If you opened the door, you could see the inside of the wall cavity making fishing wires easy. Many pre war houses had a 2 ckt safety switch with 2 30a ckts serving 2 14 ga K&T common neutral ckts.
Robert

Yeah, that's how a lot of older houses in NC are done too. A 60 amp panel with a main pullout and a range pullout, then four plug fuses below. All right out on the porch.

Reminds me of the old tiny farm houses in my area of Austria. All L-shaped and built next to each other with the short side facing the street. Roof spans the whole width (often no more than one room plus hallway) and on one side or down the center there's a set of huge carriage doors leading to a covered drive to the backyard (no doors on the back). When these places were wired, some of the tinier only had one circuit (10 amps I guess, maybe even 6) and the fuses and meters (fused neutrals) out in the drive.

The older 1952-56 Levittown, PA houses all had fuse boxes originally, despite the ads advertising breakers. The 1957 models came with breakers as far as I know, apparently Levitt couldn't get a three-pull-out panel for the added central A/C for cheap enough!

Almost every house that still has the original service around here is a ticking time bomb, with all of the added air conditioners, appliances, not to mention additions!

John, that install looks good, nice to see it work out, I'd probably do something similar. Oh, and is that asbestos I spy behind that strut?

Ian A.