Outdoor Fuse Box

I have a fuse box for a part of the house. I would like to add a breaker box.



I am going to just use the old fuse box as a conjunction box, and add the breaker box on it.



My questions is:



how exactly am I going to do the wiring for this fuse box/conjuction box?



Do i keep the fuses in the fuse box?
      

We recently purchased an apartment complex built in 1950. Inspector's report advised us to upgrade the main electrical panel (fuse box) on the  outside of the building. He also advised us to relocate fuse boxes in closets stating it is unsafe and a fire hazard.

We met with several electricians to get a quote. It's so confusing because everybody says different things... 



FUSE BOXES IN THE CLOSET: One electrician advised us to flip the panel into the bathroom(closet is adjacent to bathroom) and install a breaker instead of a fuse box, another electrician claimed it's not up to code to have breakers in the bathroom.



MAIN PANEL OUTSIDE THE BUILDING: One electrician advised us to upgrade the amperage (currently 30 amps), the other claimed it's an unnecessary change that drives the cost up since we do not have any appliances that require high amperage: no washers or dryers.

So confusing. I want the property to be SAFE for our tenants, but cost-efficient for us. Any thoughts?

thank you.
      

Hey guys,

we have a 4-plex in San Diego that we bought several months ago that was built in 1950. According to inspector's report, we needed electrical upgrades. One of the electricians told us city is under a project to underground all the electrical lines, and if we do not do upgrades the way city EXPECTS us, once our neighborhood is due for undergounding, we will have to REDO the whole thing again (like changing the location of the MAIN electrical panel from where it is now).

Can they FORCE these upgrades to the owners? I am talking about a 15000-20000$ that will be required... It is not cheap...



What we wanted to do is the very minimum, but to make sure our tenants are safe: just replace fuses in each unit with BREAKERS and leave it in the closets as we "grandfathered" them in and replace the main panel fuse with a breaker.

But according to the advise of an electrician based on the city undergrounding requirements, we will have to RELOCATE the fuses from closets to the OUTSIDE of the building AND RELOCATE the main panel from where it is now to an opposite direction (closer to the main street).

Can the city ENFORCE us to do this?
      

Hey guys,



I am trying to convert several 2 prong to 3 prong outlets throughout my house that was built in 1959. I have attached 2 photographs of the outlet, one from the right, and one from the left.



You will see the right side of the outlet has a RED and a BLACK wire attached to it. The left side has a WHITE wire.



I took the Menards employees advice that the black wire was most likely the ground, hooked it up, and blew a fuse (time delay fuses....). When I tried screwing in another fuse, it blew right away. This happened about 4 times and I got frustrated and decided to try this forum.



Any ideas as to which cable would be the ground, if any?? I'm pretty new to all of this. Any advice?



Thanks!
      

Hi all

I'm renovating a rental home I bought. It has the original 90 year old fuse panel  and I'd like to replace it with a modern panelboard. Here's a picture of the current setup:







I'd like to demo the inset fuse box cabinet and then mount a new panel on the wall to the left.

The service conduit goes inside the stucco into the building. I'd like to cut it, put in junction box, and a sweep and extend the service to the left to the new panel



I called our electric co. to get the power disconnected and strangely the rep told me "Oh, people usually just work on it hot". Is this true/feasible??



Your advice is appreciated
      

I'm new to this site.  But would appreciate some troubleshooting.  I just renovated my kitchen, gutted and all, finished in the Fall.  I did not replace wiring to the dryer, nor tamper with it, to my knowledge.  We did have an electrician add a small fuse panel.  We did not add more appliances then before, added some lights, but mostly used the room to separate things out.  Had a mentor do the wiring, many years of experience, very tidy and careful work, though not electrician by trade.  We have a standard 200 amp box as far as i know.  The house is 100 years old, but the wiring isn't.



In October my mother in law heard a very loud bang.  The electric dryer had been running.  She smelled smoke.  At the dryer receptacle was molten plastic sprayed onto the wall, caused by overheating at that point, due to I don't know what.  I thought maybe I had knocked something loose in the receptacle when i was drywalling around it.  I can't remember now if the breaker had tripped.  The receptacle and plug were toast. 



I replaced the receptacle, I replaced the dryer cord, not the breaker.   The dryer worked fine until february, when it stopped heating.  I found a bad thermal fuse and replaced it, the very common two pronged white one. 



The dryer worked fine until early April when it stopped heating again.  I checked all the fuses/thermostats on the back and the heating element, as I had done the first time.  Nothing was bad.  I checked the voltage coming out of the wall, as I had done the first time, only this time I did it correctly and got a reading that told me to check the breaker in the panel, which had not thrown.  When I checked the voltage between the Nuetral Bus and the two terminals on the Dryer's 30 amp breaker I only got a good reading on one of them, telling me that the breaker was bad.  While at the box, i noticed that to the main breaker, from where the conduit comes into the box from outside, the nuetral wires are bare all the way up, no insulation, and at the terminal of the main breaker they appear to have all melted together, even a couple small pieces have melted off of the "bundle." 



Switched the range 50 amp breaker with the dryer, dryer worked fine, nothing was back fed either.  Bought a new 30 amp breaker for the dryer and installed it on Saturday.  Also on Saturday we were given a dryer, about 4 years old, same as ours, so i hooked it up and saved ours for a spare, which I deemed still good since it seemed the breaker was the issue.  New Dryer worked fine from saturday until today.  Now it won't turn on, though it didn't cut out mid load yesterday either.  The breaker did not trip.  I repeat, no tripped breaker.  I just checked the voltage at the wall and it seems to have that same problem where one side of the receptacle gets a reading of 120, and the other a reading of about 5.  The problem must be bigger than the breaker.  I am not an electrician, I am a welder.  I have gone as far as I could on my own.  Thank you.
      

I was replacing a thermostat to my central heating/a/c. while re-wiring the new unit, there was a pop and now there is no power.  The Honeywell guy told me that I probably blew a fuse.  However, I can't find any fuses anywhere.  Can somebody please help me with this?  We don't have the funds to hire a professional for something that sounds so small.  It's over 100 degrees today and I have kids in the home.  Thanks a bunch!
      

Had a Home Inspection (don't have the report yet.)  The house was built in 1983.  One thing the inspector said was a grounding wire should be put in from the panel in the garage to the outside box.



He also said I should have a new panel put in ($ 1,500-1,700).  That's a lot of money especially when you're just buying a house.  It sort of concerns me, but he didn't sound like it was urgent.



I can't believe I'd have to replace circuit breakers.  I'll get 3 estimates when I do this.



Is this a normal problem for houses this age?



I always think of my dad's 60 yr old house and he never once had a repairman.  I think his electrical was ancient.
      

Hello! Great help here. I did a search and could not find a solution to my problem so I had to make a new thread.



I just purchased this house and it is a bit of a fixer upper. one side of the house has no power. This looks to be a sub panel? and it is on the side of the house with no power. I was wondering if anybody could help with the wiring of this panel? The main box is just on the outside of this box.







This looks like an old box and I can not see where to wire the ground/common wires. There are 2 bars under the breakers and both have a black wire connected to them.
      

I'm currently working on a house built in the 1930's. The electrical is a mess with a combination of a switch panel  and a fuse box with most of it still being knob and tube. I'm running a new electrical line to the air handler in the basement. This is due to it currently being tapped off a light circuit which also feeds an outlet in the kitchen, a bedroom, and half the outlets upstairs. (There's no rhyme or reason to the current electrical setup). 



  My main question is I'm running  12NM through bored holes in the studs to the air handler. Once I get to the handler and run it down to where it enters the appliance and switch box will I run in to codes problems. Should this run in the basement be inside a conduit or is NM cable okay? 

  Any guidance would be appreciated.