ECN Forum
Posted By: pauluk Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/11/03 09:16 AM
There have been many references in ECN to old panels which had main and range fuse pull-outs, plus four of the old Edison-screw type fuses.

What would have been the typical circuit arrangement in houses wired with these?

Was it two small appliance circuits, plus two general circuits for the rest of the house? Or were these installed before the NEC required separate appliance circuits in the kitchen area?
Posted By: nesparky Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/12/03 03:00 AM
Those were installed long before small appliance circuits were code.
Some older houses did not even use all 4 of the fuses. I recently saw one that had all outlets and light on just 2 of the fuses. the other 2 holes were rusty and according to the owner had never been used. This house of course had knob and tube wiring.
In this case 1 fuse served the second floor and a entry way. the other fuse servid the rest of the house. The main fuse was 50 amp and the range fuse were 40 Amp.
The owner was not happy to be told that to wire this house to current code as was asked for by a prospective buyer would cost more than $100.00 and would require drilling and cutting walls. This 94 year old owner said " It's been fine for the 73 years I have lived here. Why should I change it?"
[Linked Image]
Posted By: ga.sparky56 Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/12/03 03:50 AM
These type fusepanels are still common in my area (NE Ga.) Usually, the kitchen/dining room,((all one room) is supplied by 1 ckt, The rest of the house is on another ckt.
The main is 60a range is 40a. There is usually one other 120v ckt for a well pump.

When electric water heaters were added most simply "tapped" off the lugs feeding the main and went to a 2 ckt Edison -screw fuse box,installed 2 30a fuses and waaala! heated water! Most of these homes were wired under the Old REA or Rural Electrification Association back in the 1940's when eletricity first became available here.

"God bless the TVA" was heard here for years!

Russell

P.S. A lot of these were installed on the covered front porch with the service around the corner. This was a status symbol in those days. " See! We have 'Lectricity"

[This message has been edited by ga.sparky56 (edited 05-11-2003).]
Posted By: classicsat Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/12/03 07:33 PM
My other house, being supplied
by a 4+range (not the ubitquios Sears
electric brand, but a Taylor or an Etco,
I forget) is laid out as follows:

1: Upstairs. One recepticle (yes, for the entire upstairs), the ceiling light for the
room the recepricle is in, the hall celing fixture, and a wall sconce in one of the other rooms (with a switch on the fixture)

2: Downstairs front bedroom light, outlet,
and outlet on other side of wall from
the light swith/outlet box in that bedroom.

3/4 a shared neutral circuit serving the most
of the downstairs and outside. The one leg seems to run most of the lights, the other downstairs room light/outlet (and a self-switced wall light fixture in another upstairs room). The other seems to run the outlets in the other 3 walls (one in each, the 4th wall outlet being described in circuit #1) of the main downstairs room
and outside.

This house was wired in 1952, built way before that (1910s-1920s)

Of note,there are main lug sub boxes
(30A fused disconnects), for the water
system, dryer, water heater, and a baseboard heater(the latter two of which were run by quite a bit of 12/2 romex between the main lugs and the fused disconnect, they are now disconnected). The first two are still connected, the dryer line supplying a
sub-panel to some oulets/lights in the addition.
Posted By: Bill Addiss Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/12/03 08:09 PM
Can someone send in a picture of one of these panels? I thought I had one somewhere, but it is eluding me at the moment.

Thanks in advance,
Bill
Bill@Electrical-Contractor.net
Posted By: Admin Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/12/03 10:11 PM
Cutler Hammer Fuse Box - Main + Range + 4


[Linked Image]

Thanks to Mike Mills! (mamills)
Posted By: frenchelectrican Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/13/03 03:20 AM
these are very common boxes what we deal with it and alot of time the plug fuse end up 20 ,25 even 30 amps !!! [Linked Image] and alot of time when i see it i know it will be pain in the butt with it because of alot of wireing jam with a single screw and few time i end up have 4 feeders from one fuse!! and half of the time wires get little charred from the heat and constally overloaded the two places i find it alot is kitchen and living room crs but bathroom is inclued the list too.. but some case i seee few people are not too bright and end up put a penny inside the socket to by pass it i found one allready with stuck penny there i was not really suprised but i knew they put too much load there

merci marc
Posted By: ThinkGood Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/13/03 12:34 PM
Also, grounding--earthing? ;-) was via a cold-water pipe.

I believe there was not yet a requirement for a ground rod when these were installed.

Were the K&T panels even grounded, as there was no ground distributed with the K&T conductors?

As to the pennies, I remember from probably at least 20 years ago reading in the insert that would ride along with the electric bill to never use a penny in the fuse box. I wonder if the consequences had become worse once the (USA) pennies were changed to mostly zinc [Linked Image]
Posted By: mamills Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/13/03 01:42 PM
Marc:
My aunt used to have one of these panels in her house. She used 30 amp fuses in all four sockets. Her rationale: "The 30 amp fuses cost the same as the smaller ones, and they don't burn out nearly as often!" [Linked Image] Go figure out logic like that...

As if this wasn't bad enough, a neighbor "helped" her on the occasion of her blowing a 50 amp range fuse. He provided her with two neatly cut pieces of copper tubing which fit the fuse jaws perfectly. This was a 100 amp panel - the range pullout was bussed ahead of the other pullout, which disconnected the plug fuses only. The result; no OCPD at all for her range, until I explained the fallacy of this.

What works for plumbing works for electricity...not in this case.

Mike (mamills)

[This message has been edited by mamills (edited 05-13-2003).]
Posted By: SvenNYC Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/15/03 12:12 AM
Mike,

I think a good idea in your aunt's case was to have put in those Non-Tamp (Eagle) or Kant-Tamp (Gem) fuses and the 15-amp adapters that permanently lock into the fuse sockets.

At least that would have been _some_ protection since you can't really screw in a 20 amp fuse all the way into an adapter designed for 15 amps.

Also, that fusebox looks pretty brand new. Do they still manufacture them? Wow!

I always thought the two big fuse blocks were to cut off power to the entire panel or house (kind of like a main breaker in a breaker box). Or how is it laid out?

In the houses I've lived in, the fuse boxes I've run across and dealt with have essentially been single porcelain pony-cleat type (surfacemount) lampholders in a metal enclosure, which is why I'm not familiar with these and am asking the stupid queston. [Linked Image]
Posted By: circuit man Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/15/03 01:11 AM
seven, you're not asking a dumb question. the only dumb one is the one not asked. that said. it's like the pic says main 60amp (controls all) ,range usually 40amp then he branch circuits 15 to 30. but back then no more than 20.:-)
Posted By: pauluk Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/15/03 11:37 AM
Thanks everyone! It's always interesting to read-up on how things used to be done.

Quote
I believe there was not yet a requirement for a ground rod when these were installed.
Anyone know when the ground rod became a code requirement?

A similar situation existed in England, where it was common to use the water service as the sole grounding electrode up until the 1960s.
Posted By: mamills Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/15/03 02:56 PM
Sven:
I don't believe these panels are being made any more. On rare occasion, you can find a brand new one as an old stock item in an old hardware store...my wife gets mad at me when we go on vacation because I like to stop in at every hardware store along the way to see what kind of electrical "treasures" they have for sale (the older and more decrepit the store, the better, of course) [Linked Image].

I have some very nice vintage panels like these in my collection. They are (were) built in 60 amp and 100 amp varieties. In the 60 amp version, the left 60 amp. pullout was indeed a "main"; the range fuses, plug fuses and the sub-feed lugs nearby were all bussed off of the load side of this pullout. In the 100 amp version, the left 60 amp pullout disconnected power to the plug fuses only (and the sub-feed lugs next to the plug fuses), the range pullout being bussed ahead of it, i.e. the "main" and "range" pullouts were connected in parallel to the service from the meter.

I've seen many of the pony cleat-style boxes you referred to. The fascinating thing about them is that there are almost as many variations of them as there are installations - each one essentially being "hand built" for a particular use. Joe Tedesco's excellent "Electric Meter Horrors" has some good photos of these devices...some arranged in boxes, some merely installed out in the open.

I tried to tell my aunt about the type S fuses, and the hazards of overfusing these ancient circuits. She wouldn't have anything of it until she experienced a small electrical fire which incinerated one of the fuse sockets. She had an EC upgrade the service to 200 amp and install numerous new circuits with 15 amp breakers to split up the old knob and tube stuff. She eventually came to think of her new Square D panel as being "the best thing since sliced bread" [Linked Image]. She used to invite her friends over to look at it, and show it off at her garden club meetings! I guess I would do the same too, if I were in my 80's and had spent that much money on it... [Linked Image]

Mike (mamills)

[This message has been edited by mamills (edited 05-15-2003).]
Posted By: kale Re: Main & Range, Plus 4 - 05/15/03 10:42 PM
We had a similar fuse box in the house where I grew up, except that it had 4 pullouts, 2 above the four fuses and 2 below.

It was a large farmhouse and the plug fuses were roughly divided by a quarter of the house. For example, pull out fuse 1 and lose the power to both floors on the NE quadrant of the house. And one of the fuses also protected all the farm buildings as well as it's portion of the house.

The pull outs controlled the mains, range, dryer, and hot water.

We did have a ground rod, and I'm pretty sure the water pipe was not grounded. I remember getting quite a shock in the bathtub when the well pump developed a short.
(Everything was wired with 2 wire romex, with no ground.)

[This message has been edited by kale (edited 05-15-2003).]
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