On Thu, 2 Jun 2011 17:56:24 -0400, "RBM" wrote:


"Metspitzer" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 2 Jun 2011 16:47:28 -0400, "RBM" wrote:


"Metspitzer" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 May 2011 17:21:28 -0500, wrote:

On Mon, 30 May 2011 17:50:19 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:

Do they make a circuit breaker panel that will mount in an old fuse
box? I have a friend that wants to get an old house ready to rent.
The house is small but it is really nice. Here are two pictures of
the fuse box. It has a GE cover that is listed at 150A. The box
measures 14.5 by 24 by 3.75. No markings on the service entrance
cable that tells what size the wire is.

He wants to just remove the old guts and update it to circuit
breakers. The bottom left fuse block is hot on both sides even with
the fuses removed. In the extreme lower left there is a fuse block
that is not being used.

Since he is an old friend, I offered to have a look at it for him,
but I really don't know what to tell him short of tearing the house
down and start from scratch. I know that is not what he wants to
hear. The insulation on the wire looks so brittle I don't want to
touch it. The house is in rural Georgia.


I dont know why you would want to do this. All you are doing is
keeping a metal box. You still have to get the meter pulled to change
the MAINS. And you still have to rewire every circuit to the house.
About the only thing you would not have to do is remove the romex or
BX clamps. So what's the point? If you have conduit going to the
house, most of the time you may find it a little more difficult, but
it's still not that big of a deal. Find a similar sized breaker box
and just change the whole thing. The time you'll spend removing cable
clamps would be spent trying to retrofit the breakers in the old box
anyhow.

Another thing to think about is the entrance to the box. If you have
an old 60A fuse box and upgrade to a mimimum 100A breaker box (or
larger), you'll need to replace the cable from the entrance head to
the meter and to the breaker box. Often this means replaceing the
pipe on the side of the house because it's too thin for the larger
cable. In order to pass code, you'll most likely have to replace
everything from the entrance head to the breaker box anyhow. The
house wiring can be reused in most cases.

Your concerns are valid.
http://i.imgur.com/t7RJJ.jpg
The main reason he wants to change anything is because there are 240V
between these two connections with the block pulled. He was working
on the plumbing to the water heater and got shocked (I forget the
details, but if he joins in he can let us know)

I have also made him very aware of having to bring everything up to
code. He is the kind of guy that does things right so I imagine
everything will be replaced, but asked me to consider changing the
panel.


** Just so you understand how that panel works: All of the upper pullouts
are "mains" One of them feeds the bank of plug fuses. When he was working
on the water heater, he undoubtedly pulled the wrong main

I don't know how all of those fuses are connected, but the owner said
he pulled every single fuse when he was shocked while working on the
water heater and it was still hot. The only one I checked was the one
for the water heater but as you can see from the picture there is no
fuse protection for the water heater. The block is out but those two
terminals are hot and connected to the water heater.

**Where you drew those two red lines, if that is where the water heater was
connected, that appears to be the line side of the fuse block, so that would
be hot regardless of fuses.

Yes. There is something connected to both sides of that fuse block.