At least if it catches fire it'll be in the right place well sort of. They counld just use the picture thats under it to cover it up.

[This message has been edited by wizzie electric (edited 01-04-2006).]

Any reason why the spare screw-plug fuses lying on top of the meter cabinet?

ya everything is breakers, I dont see any fuse panels.

[This message has been edited by wizzie electric (edited 01-05-2006).]

Probably just forgot to clean up and throw the old fuses away when this work was done. Makes you wonder.

Any idea what's behind the picture covering the lower recess?

Radar

The more I look at this, the more I think this is a basement that someone decided to finish and put the brickwork out and infront of that panel and stuff... It'd be kinda rare for a utility to give a meter location in your living room (at least here it would be )

there appears not to be any type of main OCPD in/on that FPE panel, so the "six throws or less" rule is right out the window.. dangling unsupported NM's, The SER doesnt seem to have any support on it either, but I can't tell for sure....

Maybe bricking around all this mess wasn't such a bad idea after all.... as long as it vents to the outside, it may likely keep this house standing

PS Any idea what the 2P Square D QO is for in the top of the opening? It's showing tripped.

My aging eyes must be really going bad but what is all that black coily looking gook stuff in the bottom.

It also looks to me like someone might have lit a fire in the fireplace below judging from the black stringy stuff hanging in there and the black look of the cable between the meter and the panelboard. If the stringy looking stuff is spider webs covered with unburned carbon from a fire, I think a lot of very nice semiconductive paths might have an opportunity to occur with the attendant "carbon resistor" effect happening. What would the wattage rating of that kind of "resistor" be?

Hope the owners fire insurance is paid up.

Actually, I'm surprised to see indoor metering on any single-family residence (I'm correct in my assumption, right?) after the mid-'30s, when meters and enclosures were made weatherproof.

As to the six-throws rule, in my area, 12-circuit FPE main-lug panels are very common as service equipment. They nearly always have more than six throws, and although I don't know when this might have been legal, it was certainly approved throughout the '70s here.

The black appeared to be a tar based waterproofing spread on the inside of the cinder block foundation. I think the conductive paths were spider webs.

The recess was about 16" deep.

The panel was supposed to be relocated near the red curtains on the right side of the photo.

I don't think any circuits were labeled so I don't know what the tripped breaker fed.

Like Randy I think that this was installed after the meter and panel were already approved. The SE between the panel and meter was not strapped, but I don't remember if the incoming line was strapped or not.