Is a New Panel Necessary?


  #1  
Old 05-16-01, 02:55 PM
Guest
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Hello All,

I am very new to this group, but I have a dilemma. I just moved into a house that is about 33 years old. I found out that the 220V outlet that the dryer would hook into is not connected to anything in the breaker box. Now the two mains are 125A. The range and the oven are on a dual 60A breaker (I hope I am using the right terminology). The AC and the Garage each have a dual 40A breaker, and the pool has a dual 30A breaker. Then, there are many 20A breakers; probably about 12 of them, but that is only a guess right now. The panel has no more spaces for breakers.

I think that the dryer outlet was disconnected when they installed the pool about 15 years ago, so that they could run the pool off of the dual 30A. They had used a gas dryer.

Now, this is where the problem comes in. First, I had the home warranty (HW) people send out an electrician. Turns out, the HW won't cover the outlet because it was never connected in the first place. I didn't use these electricians because I wanted to get another estimate. Also, these guys seemed a little inexperienced and they didn't notice what the next guy noticed.

Later today, I had an electrician come out to give me another estimate. One of the things that he found is the wires for most (if not all) of the 20A breakers are only rated for 15A. Then he found that both of the main feeders were burnt around the main lugs. Also, one of the main lugs seemed to be melted into the plastic housing behind it. Then when he pointed out the burned wires to his partner, the wire arced to his finger. He said if he were to just fix it so that the dryer could work, it would just put more load on an overloaded circuit. Of course, he recommeded that we replace the breaker box with a new one.

Now at this point, I am totally ready to change the box, but I wanted to get some more opinions on this. Is this totally necesary? Could I just change the main breaker and clean up the feeders? Am I going to have to bite the bullet because I have an electric dryer and a new breaker will overload my current setup? Do you think I could trust the HW electricians even though they missed what should be obvious (I figured I had a problem just by reading posts on this site in one afternoon)?

Any advice will be much appreciated!
 
  #2  
Old 05-16-01, 08:32 PM
J
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I think you got some excellent advice from the electricians who came "later today." I'd go with their recommendations. The problems they identify are real problems, and should not be ignored -- for your safety and the safety of your family. Electric dryer or not, you've got some real safety hazards!!

I don't know if you can trust the HW electricians or not. They were called out to check just one problem. If you didn't ask them to check for other hazards, they probably had other places to be. They may or may not be competent.
 
 

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