In article , "Stormin Mormon" wrote:
Overcurrent protection provided by something called "fuse".
Young people don't know what those are.

Read again, kiddo, for comprehension this time. As the OP describes it, there
was originally no overcurrent protection for the conductors between the
service panel and the fused disconnect.

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
. ..
In article
,
Art Harris wrote:
When we moved into our house (1982) there was a 240V line
in the
basement for a drier. The line connected to a metal box
with two 30A
fuses and a big on/off switch. But there were no circuit
breakers for
this line at the main breaker panel.

That's bad. That means there was no overcurrent protection
for those wires.