ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Everone's a Sparky

E.C. friend of mine went to a house recently,that had been turned into a duplex. The homeowner wanted to install a second meter/breaker panel etc. He opened existing panel only to find a 200a three phase main lug panel 15ft from the meter(no disconnect outside)with c phase fed by a pieceof #12 with most of the insulation burnt off! When quizzed, the homeowener said that his cousin who once did construction work got the panel out of a mall under renovation,cheap!My buddy told him that he would have to fix the present mess before any other work could commence.Homeowener told him that he could'nt afford that, instead he would get his cousin to do the work.Everyone knows someone that knows! Oh well.

Why is it, that everyone talks about how little they paid for their car, and how much they paid for their house? You wouldn't think that it was the case by the story above. I can hear it now. "Hey cousin Jimmy Bob, come on over and wire my house for me. I'll cook some supper." Or even worse, "I'll buy you a 6-pack."

This Bud's not for me,
Doc

Sounds like a case of "His third cousin's girlfriend's brother works as a janitor in an electrical store, so he knows what he's talking about!"

Paul, the bad part is it's been like that for 10 years as we later found out. Yikes!

Ive seen situation where a short piece of #24 was used as an internal fuse. What would the fuse rating be for #12 before it melted open?

These were ~300 amperes on 12-guage nylon.







[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 01-12-2003).]