I really have to hand it to Norcal for finding these two violations.
(To understand where the problems some into the picture, the panel is decades old - it has not been made for that long - while the building is only three years old.)

First, a view of the panel:





A closer look at the label reveals long abandoned artwork:





Finally, a look at the breakers suggests our violations:





What are the violations?

The panel is fed by 'back feeding' a breaker. While in itself not a bad thing, since 1990 the NEC has required retaining clips for these breakers. (408.36(F)). This panel pre-dates the requirement, and such clips were never made for it.

The other violation is suggested by the filler plate on the third space. This pattern -maintained through the panel - suggests a 'delta' service, with the 'high leg' on the third phase. 408.3(E) requires that this high leg be the middle leg.

Utilities often supply such services with the 'high leg' in the third position, and the metering equipment requires it to be there. After the meter, though, we are required to re-locate that phase to the middle buss.

The 3 pole C/B in the lower right feeds the receptacle in this thread. https://www.electrical-contractor.n...showflat/Number/163887/page/1#Post163887


Should we take bets on the 2 pole breaker being a standard 120/240 volt rating instead of a 240 volt rated as required since 1 pole is on high leg?

That's definitely an old panel. I am pretty sure that they dropped that ITE logo in the late 1970's. Then, of course when Siemens bought the company, the ITE name and logo went away completely. No doubt if it's in a 3 year old building without a Siemens label, it's reused.

Gould Inc. bought I-T-E Imperial Corp. in 1976, by the late '70s Gould had their logo on most of the I-T-E line.

When you guys refer to 'used', do you mean..
Removed from somewhere, and put in a job?
or
Could it have been 'existing' to remain where it is??

John

By "used" I meant that the panel was clearly once part of another installation ... replaced, salvaged, and then put to use again.

Apart from the fact that this panel pre-dates the building it serves by decades, the guy who did the work just happened to have a 'day job' that put him in a position to salvage such things.

It seems an inspection should have prevented this.

Where I am the building would still be unoccupied waiting for the electrical corrections to be made.

oh come on guys, can you honestley say you've never used a perfectly good 60's-80's salvaged panel?

-will

To be honest I don't have problems reusing an old panel that is still in good shape and fit for the purpose. However, there are two big issues: in commercial work I would certainly NOT do that for the reason of liability issues. And I probably wouldn't use a panel with breakers of that vintage anyway (fuses would be different).

For example in my own place I just moved the 1977 breaker panel to a new location with a new service and added a 1914 fuse panel as a sub to get more circuits.