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JERRY2KONE · 04.07.2011, 04:09 PM

Yea I hear ya there BG. No really this helps out a lot. When I did that big remodel job on our house in Cali last June one of the more complicated jobs for me was pulling the original 1950's power panel out and replacing it with a new updated home panel. I took a whole bunch of photos before I started and taped them to the wall so if I got confused at all I could go back the way it was previously. Once you get started it is really not that hard to figure out what wires are coming from where. And of course I could set up the breakers any way that I wanted to as long as I balanced out the "A" & "B" legs evenly.

Once I was done though we had a scare because I knew I had everything right, but no lights and it was already about 8 or 9 pm. SO I hit up the neighbor for a little sparky help and it only took a few minutes for him to figure out that the main on the back of the house was going bad. One leg was fried because they had a piggyback wire tied directly into that leg to power a makeshift A/C unit that was hanging in the wall between the garage and the dining room when the wife bought the place. So I ran on over to the Home Depot and found the main ($165.) for one breaker. I was not very happy about that, but at least I know everything in that electrical system was replaced with brand new breakers. I removed that piggybacked wire and everything was golden from there. I finally got the lights on around 1030pm using flashlights to work in the dark.

The funniest thing was when I opened up the wall to remove the old panel and found all of the ground wires twisted together OK, but just hanging inside the wall. It was never grounded during construction in 1956. SO then I had to get one of those ten foot grounding rods and drive it into the ground to make the connection legal and up to code. It took me over two hours to drive that dammed thing 9.5 feet into the ground with a claw hammer. Live and learn, right?

	(#5)
JERRY2KONE JERRY2KONE SUPERMAXX Offline Posts: 3,452 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: HAYMARKET VIRGINIA	04.07.2011, 04:09 PM Yea I hear ya there BG. No really this helps out a lot. When I did that big remodel job on our house in Cali last June one of the more complicated jobs for me was pulling the original 1950's power panel out and replacing it with a new updated home panel. I took a whole bunch of photos before I started and taped them to the wall so if I got confused at all I could go back the way it was previously. Once you get started it is really not that hard to figure out what wires are coming from where. And of course I could set up the breakers any way that I wanted to as long as I balanced out the "A" & "B" legs evenly. Once I was done though we had a scare because I knew I had everything right, but no lights and it was already about 8 or 9 pm. SO I hit up the neighbor for a little sparky help and it only took a few minutes for him to figure out that the main on the back of the house was going bad. One leg was fried because they had a piggyback wire tied directly into that leg to power a makeshift A/C unit that was hanging in the wall between the garage and the dining room when the wife bought the place. So I ran on over to the Home Depot and found the main ($165.) for one breaker. I was not very happy about that, but at least I know everything in that electrical system was replaced with brand new breakers. I removed that piggybacked wire and everything was golden from there. I finally got the lights on around 1030pm using flashlights to work in the dark. The funniest thing was when I opened up the wall to remove the old panel and found all of the ground wires twisted together OK, but just hanging inside the wall. It was never grounded during construction in 1956. SO then I had to get one of those ten foot grounding rods and drive it into the ground to make the connection legal and up to code. It took me over two hours to drive that dammed thing 9.5 feet into the ground with a claw hammer. Live and learn, right? SUPERMAXX YOUR LIFE.