Ok what is with these breaker thieves? They're lifting reletively cheap used breakers...... Not some high dollar items on the street, or are they? I have a 12 gallon bucket full!

It's hard to make out on my screen--what are those black things sitting in the utility side? They look kind of like the missing breakers.

[This message has been edited by SolarPowered (edited 08-13-2004).]

SolarPowered...
Those are breakers from my van that I'm getting ready to install!

Stealing breakers from a home - when there are other more vaulable items? It does not make sense.
When did this sort of thing start, and do you know if it has happened more than once?

Pierre

If these thieves are that desperate, I'm surprised they didn't steal the main also!! After all, that's where the BIG money is...

...Used to be this sort of thing only happened with old abandoned equipment. I guess this is another byproduct of our economy.

Mike (mamills)

BTW: Are replacement utility-side covers available, or will you have to fabricate something?

[This message has been edited by mamills (edited 08-13-2004).]

Perhaps it wasn't the value of the breakers (what's a used Homeline worth anyway???), but the mere act of destroying someone's property that was the motivation?

Either way it's sick, and sooner or later these morons are going to become eligible for a Darwin award.

Randy, judging from the panel, is this home relatively new?

Peter

Pierre,
First time I've come across someone stealing resi breakers, first time for this customer also... One thing of note.. There are more homes still under construction across the street from this place... Someone run out of breakers on the job?
Mike,
I've got confusing signs on the perpitraitor being an electrician or someone who might just know something about electricity.... possibly they were going to steal the main & got lit up big time trying to disconnect one of the poco phases? (This would also explain the missing covers.) As far as the missing cover... H.O's insurance is covering this, so I added the cost of another panel into the job,bought one & took the poco cover for this panel...

Peter,
Home is only a year old! One side of the street is completed, the other side is still under construction (rough in stage), for about the first couple blocks...

Another thing I was thinking is someone can easily walk these into the nearest Home Depot & have store credit for the new price of these towards anything they want.. (Tools, etc..)

-Randy

Randy,

What city/town is this? Since you're a California resi guy, you can appreciate this. I went out to visit my friends in Carlsbad a few years ago. They live in one of those new mega developments that sprung up on a poinsettia farm.

Anyway, I was walking through some of the homes under construction, and noticed the the wiring was pretty bad, look here In one house that I managed to check out during the finish, they left an entire box of Homeline breakers on the ground in front of the panel. Oddly enough, it happened to rain the week I was there too! Inside, they left GFIs, smoke detectors, devices and other stuff all over the place. All perfectly good stuff that they just left behind to get tossed. Unbelievable!

Peter

Peter,
This was in Fontana out in the Inland Empire... The call came into me about 10pm & I didnt get there till almost 11pm... the construction site across the street really gave me the creeps.. wierd noises kept coming from back in there someplace, so I didn't bother to go "adventuring" while i was there.. (I'm sure the H.O. wouldve loved me to go find her some new breakers in there!)
I do remember when I was a kid I wandered into a construction site for some condo's on a Sunday & found all kinds of stuff laying out... Trim, boxes, rolls of romex, etc...

Almost reminds me of a job I was working on where the foreman thought that some fluorescent cans with battery back up ballasts hadnt been delivered & told the office to have them reshipped.... At the end of the job when we were cleaning out our container, we found em buried in the back... He gave me 5 & another journeyman 5 & told us to "make them disappear"

-Randy

Hey Lostashell, that's pretty sneak - stealing breakers and then pretending you just happen to have some in your truck that will work...

Hey!, Ya gotta make a living don't ya?

If I took em, I would've had enough to replace 'em without driving to a 24hour Home Depot!

-Randy

I agree... this is a first, especially individual breakers from an occupied home. It's not like there were boxes of 'em left out of the gang box one night and it was a "target of opportunity"

I also agree that this thief musta known a thing or two about electricity. Who else would even bother stealing breakers and manage not to get them self electrocuted. If this guy accidentally touched one of those hot bus bars, the HO might have come home and found him lying on the floor with a pile of breakers at his side.

At first I was thinking the thief was going to steal the main, & thats why the poco sections are all opened.. & then maybe he got cold feet.. I'd agree that this was either an electrician or someone who's worked around alot of electricians... Most construction workers I've come across know how to yank a resi breaker out without getting lit up!

Pierre wrote:

Unfortunately....
Stolen Pushmatic

-Randy

This is almost related, but I once worked at a drugstore in a rough part of town, where, during our less-busy hours of operation, someone stole the urinal out of the men's bathroom! We even had security camera footage of this guy walking out the door with the unit. I am still surprised nobody noticed him lugging this out of the building. Some people are just plain strange.

Was he taking the p?

Alan

Gee...whatever happened to the days when theives would break into a house and steal the VCR, the color TV, the radio or hi-fi, money, jewelry and any other small stuff they could pick up and carry out.

I'm trying to picture some guy dressed in black, wearing a ski-cap & burnt cork on his face; with a screwdriver....digging into a panel, trying to unhook the breakers. Why didn't he go for the METER while he was at it????

Boss; "Fingers, pay attention you idiot!! Tonite, you go to Toomey's Breakers Yard, you'll find the stuff I want in a sack behind the panel by a post near the street door. Deliver it to me as fast as possible, got that?"

Fingers; "Duh, yes Boss!"

That night at 2 Mease Street, Fingers prises open the panel by the yard door, stuffs the breakers in a sack, and posts them to the Boss next-day delivery.

Heck, we installed a 200A panel once, with the outside gfi recept nearby, for a new house we were getting ready to rough. Came back a few days later to start that rough, and guess what? Not only did someone take that panel, they even took the bellbox we had for getting temp power, and the GFI as well!

Home Depots (some of them, anyway) have signs up by the returns desk announcing that they will not accept circuit breakers for return without a refund.