ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Panel replacement

How would any of you handle this?

Say you replace a old fuse panel to a new breaker panel only to find your wires are now too short to land on the breakers!!! Do you simply make a splice or add a length of wire with a wire nut?

Reason I ask is because I've done jobs behind other folks and have found splices, wire nuts, and even just twisted together with black 33. Scary

How would you handle this?

If it's only a few circuits that need to be done, I usually just splice on a length of THHN with a wirenut to extend the conductor.

If there are a lot of cables that are going to be too short, I land them into a separate J-box or short length of wireway next to the panel, and feed this box through a short nipple from the panel, making the splices inside the J-box.

Depends on what the customer is willing to pay for. Separate junction boxes make for a nice, neat looking panel interior, but, if money is tight, splicing in the panel is fine as long as you keep the requirements of 312.8 in mind.

Tom

Splicing in the panel is usually easier. Tom I agree separate j boxes make the inside of the panel look nice and neat but nobody sees that. They see the j boxes outside the panel which when added to all the wires that are there can make that look like a mess.

If the house is in pipe it can be more difficult. Then if they went and finished around the panel and you have no extra pipe on the 90s then forget it. Fighting to get all the old pipes to line up with the new panel without dammaging the old wires is enough trouble. Sure it never looks perty but I don't swaet it. I have seen others pull new wires back to the first box. Then the colors don't seem to follow thru which makes more confusing later.

Tom

aslong as there's enough wire tog et into the panel we usually splice them in the panel, rarely have we put them in seperate j-boxes unless they're like a range cable or subfeed cable or just too dang many to into the panel or they're too short.

i personaly like the j box method makes for a real nice pro look when done. I also hate using wirenuts inside of panels. i have changed alot of 60 amp fuse panels out for 100 amp breakers and found that the only way to do this right and in a timely manner is to do a partial or complet rewire. before i started doing this it was taking way too long to get alll that k&t to work right and be to code so I presented my idea to my last boss and did one quicker with a partial rewire and he charged more had the work done faster and everyone was happy

One option I considered when i swapped out the panel at my wife's grandma's was to get a Piece of 4" ductway (+ end caps) - have all the runs terminate in there, nipple the ductway to the top of the new panel, and then make the appropriate (extended) runs using THHN/THWN to the new breakers.

It's bigger visually, but "cleaner" (less "loose" pipes and cable to the customer)