Should an exterior electrical panel be locked?
jylu
16 years ago
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Comments (7)
Ron Natalie
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Replacing Electric Panel 200 amps
Comments (11)I had my panel upgraded to 200 amp QO in 2013 (house in Northern VA) and a local semi-retired electrician did the job for $1850, including the permit. The initial estimates I got were about $2200-2300, however, the guy was working a commercial job in the area and he gave me a break because it was easy for him to add my job to his schedule. Also remember that the panel upgrade is not the end of the upgrade process. I've gone through a kitchen renovation that added a lot of circuits, added central AC, and added dedicated circuits for bathroom GFCI, bath heater/fan, and exterior GFCI outlets. It seems to never end. I've also stripped out all the accessible two-wire flexible metal conduit and replaced it with new NM-B cable. I still have a few old runs with no way to replace them through access from the basement or attic, but they are only being used for lighting circuits. Bruce...See MoreUgly placement of electrical panel
Comments (37)"... there is no written plan for any of this. It's just my husband and I telling the Builder what we want and he figures it out as it goes. I mean, we are kind of following the original blueprint ..." The original blueprint IS the written plan. Herein lies the problem: The architect is the designer who produced the original written plan. He is probably not available at this point to work out design issues. The builder is not a designer. But he is designing on the fly whenever changes are deemed necessary. Designing on the fly is risky because, depending on the circumstances, it's not always possible to satisfactorily solve problems that show up late and unannounced. Changes from the written plans and last minute revisions usually end up costing more time and money to fix. Whenever there are changes, in order to have a satisfactory outcome, someone must be thinking ahead of time how to resolve the changed features. If that's not happening, there are sure to be changes that don't work out as one would hope. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. When it comes to site work, if it is going to be done without a plan, I predict that there will be undesirable features built into the work. It would be best if someone could begin working on a plan and get these things thought through in advance of their being built. Terri, from what you've posted, it seems that you can draw. But in order for your drawing to be useful for building purposes, it must accurately reflect actual measurements. Then it would be readily apparent when there is not really room to build something the way it is shown, or if there is going to be a problem with the way something works....See MoreRelocating electric meter, mast, and main panel
Comments (11)If it were me, I'd install a lock on the breaker box and call it good. If you want to do a little more, install a picture to hide the box. Further, unless this child is incredibly young and doesn't understand consequences, you should be also able to explain that he should not mess around with this. If there are no open breaker slots in the panel, I don't see how a kid could do anything other than flip a breaker, unless he's really good with a screwdriver. And if that's the case, you've got a whole lot of other things to worry about. The idea of re-wiring a house and moving the panel, meter, and mast because there is a breaker panel in a kid's room is, to me, incredible overkill. With the money you would spend on this, you could probably build an additional bedroom for the kid instead....See Moreexterior landscape planting need to camouflage BIG electrical
Comments (4)The ~2" conduit running horizontally is so prominent it is by itself killing a solution. That should have had a different route, like along the foundation. I assume they ran straight across then down in-wall to next to the basement panel. Just to hide the horizontal conduit with plantings, you would be hiding your window as well, and simultaneously masking the prominence of this room's gabled massing that dominates as you approach the house. And any foliage from plantings shouldn't get too close to the house, so you'd still see behind any plantings as you walk to the front door. Painting that conduit to blend won't hide the shadow of it's size. Trellis etc cannot block the meter. Otherwise, plantings within a few feet of the corner looks like they would appropriately block the telephone box, meter, and generator panel and unit....See Morehendricus
16 years agortscoach
16 years agojylu
16 years agoHU-238469815
last monthmtvhike
25 days agolast modified: 25 days ago
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