Wooden fuse panel box

[StevenT]

During today's inspection in a +130 year old building, I opened up a wooden box mounted in a closet,

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and found this:

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[Richard Moore]

LOL...the doorbell transformer is a nice added touch!

[StevenT]

Hey Rich,

Yeah, nice effect.

Also the top socket is actually being backfed too, and is hot on both sides. Perhaps that is why it's empty.

Do you think I was "overzealous" by recommending total upgrade of the electrical system.

[Neal Lewis]

Steve, we have no idea what the rest of the electrical system looks like. Looks like some newer wiring exiting the bottom of the panel, possibly in conduit. Does that have to be replaced?

Some of those old wood boxes can be lined with sheets of asbestos.

[StevenT]

Hi Neal,

The old panel is feeding the sub meter, and some lighting circuits, The meter is feeding another newer sub panel with 4-15 amp breakers and is coming back from the panel tied into some of the old existing circuits.

If you look at the new subpanel, you will see the lugs are jumped, creating a 120v panel.

By counting the hots and neutrals, you can see a multi wire circuit has been created, but the hots are not connected to breakers that are tied together.

I must tell you, the set up really had my head spinning. I wish I had more time to play with it. Since I was calling for total rewiring, I didn't spend more time on the box.

The door was all wood, but the inside of the box was lined with metal.

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[Scottpat]

I have found a couple of wooden panel enclosures over the years. This is my favorite wooden panel box that was still in operation. It was lined with asbestos board.

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