Todd & Suzette Flick

Where do you start?

With ripping out all that mess

This reminds me of my visit to the Los Angeles Freeway , I got lost there too!!!

Pierre

 
Does that grey backboard look like Transite sheeting to anyone else? [Uhh, asbestos board…]

Yikes!! Cans o'worms!!

yeah i can see one of few worst mess but this set up i did ran into few time but have to look out on one box on upper right corner it have 3 phase power there for central air conding it was common during late 60 to early 70's but now days it is history now because hard to deal with 4 wire delta service only few place in major citys still have that for resdentail service now but i heard some rumours but i dont have any fact some area might go with true 3 phase wye serice but keep in mind i just heard rumors that all

merci marc

I see this so many times where I live to many do it your selfers and farmer joes out there who have no concept or understanding of the concepts of safe and effective installations.

Famous last words, 'Hey whats the big deal it works right!'

cheman6 = Todd and Suzette Flick fyi

cheman6,
Welcome to ECN!!.

Theres a few houses in my town that have 4 wire delta service. Houses with central air that date back to the 60's. Must have been an expensive premium for new houses back then.

Just imagine if I owned such a house: I could connect the dryer between the "wild" leg of the delta and one of the 120V lines. But being careful to connect the dryer so its 120V motor sees 120V and not 208V! Probably not code though.

[This message has been edited by wa2ise (edited 12-20-2004).]

Aah!
Cheman6, welcome. (It didn't say Cheman6 anywhere in your email. Now I know)

OK, I'll play "devils advocate".

Other than the lack of some staples, why should this be ripped out? There appear to be properly sized fuses for the wiring. The sloppiest is what appears to be the newer work (dead center).

What's Unsafe about it?

The panel on the upper left is also 3Ø 4W.

This would be a fairly easy job to change this over to breakers. Looks like about 50 circuits. Lots of working space and the wires are plenty long

A Continent apart, different fittings, yet so familiar.....

Click here

Looks like about 6 car payments are about to be covered.

At one time this was how it was done. (minus the messiness of the cabling)







Bjarney's got the only specific claim to anything that may be unsafe (looks like transite), yet everyone seems avid to rip the whole thing out.
How Come?




If the original work was done by a DIYer, then he was very well equipped...These are "indenter" type EMT fittings, and require a special crimping tool to install. (I've never had one)

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 12-23-2004).]

Welcome cheman6.
I see this stuff too often in the Omaha Ne area. As origionally installed it was probably good and still would be if it had been left alone or serviced by some one who knew what they were doing.
However 99% of this stuff has had many hacks trying to play electrician for far too long. Much of that wiring probably has deteriated to the point of touch it and watch the insulation fall away.
Best to replace the mess and be done with it. Trying to salvage this would cost more than replacing it and still would have problems.

[This message has been edited by nesparky (edited 12-23-2004).]

That was the plan just thanks for the welcome nesparky

"Where to start?"
Where's my dynamite?

Ian A.

good god I've never seen so many fuses!

Personally I am a fan of H.R. Giger.

[This message has been edited by rad74ss (edited 08-13-2005).]

I love doing jobs like this. Nothing more rewarding than completeing a service like this and making the customer beyond satisfied with the work I've done. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say, "I wish I could do a service every day of the week" because to me that's the best type of work to do.

What's wrong with it? The description says that is EXACTLY the way it was found. I really think most of those panels should have covers.
I did a rough count and got 50 fuses. A single 42 circuit box wouldn't quite replace that mess.

Uh, what is it?? o:
I've never seen that many fuses....in fact, in all my life I'd never seen more than a few in one box.

The my local Bussman (yes the fuse folks) representative REMOVED the breaker panel when he moved into his NEW house and installed a fuse panel. What does this tell you about breakers?

Anyone with an understanding of let-thought energy knows the answer. Until someone makes an affordable breaker that can open in 1/2 cycle I'd prefer to have fuses in my house too.

When the Bussman guy went to sell his house several years later he had to change it all back to breakers because the new owners could not comprehend his reasononing.

It's this microwavable, fast food world we live in; breakers are just convenient.

I've never seen a fuse fail to open.

RSlater,
RSmike

I'm partial to fuses myself. When I replaced the Federal Pacific ($%@^$) panel in my house a few years ago, I initially wanted to install a fusible panel. Due to the scarcity of them in my area, however, I could not find one of sufficient size, and I didn't want to cobble something together that looked like it had been added onto a dozen times, and went with Square D.
This is an interesting setup, nonetheless, with a lighting panel (with switches), other panels with a combination of plug fuses and cartridge fuse pullouts (one pullout appears to be missing...?). I think the nastiest thing in this picture is the J-box in the upper right corner .
Does anyone know what kind of business (?) this was found in?

Mike (mamills)

If I owned a house, I'd rather have fuses in my panel instead of circuit-breakers. With a huge main "kife switch" right after the meter to positively shut off all power to the house.

While I agree with RSmike on the advantage of fuses over circuit breakers when it comes to reliability, consider this:

Breakers prevent idiots from replacing plug fuses with coins and slugs, and also using bits of wire to bridge the clips on cartridge fuse holders.

If money were no object (hey, I can dream) and were the appropriate hardware available, I would go for a series combination of breakers and fuses, coordinated so that the breaker would trip on overloads, but the fuse would open on solid faults or breaker failures.

Fuses have benefits, but I've yet to see a GFI fuse, and overfusing because of nuisance tripping is a real danger; hardware failures are real, but human failures are even more common. With enough money, I'd want the best of both worlds.

-Jon