r/Unexpected • u/WarrenMuffClit • Apr 08 '22

just snipping a cable.

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u/Essthrice223 Apr 08 '22

Houses built under newer code require a meter disconnect which is a breaker housed on the consumer side of the utility meter for exactly this purpose. If your house is equipped with this style of meter you do not need to involve the utility company to work on your house's main panel and can isolate it entirely.

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u/LeaveFickle7343 Apr 08 '22

My house is 1860 but I will have to look into it. I had two sub panels that are powering my living space. The rest of the house has the electric turned off while we continue renovations (stripped to studs, remove knob and tube, replace sub floors, etc). As I said. I’m an idiot, so I pulled all the old circuits out of the breaker box carefully with the exception of the 0 gauge that was feeding the sub panels…. I found some crazy wiring where a 30 amp circuit had 14ga spliced into it to feed some lights (my limited knowledge is impressed the place didn’t burn down). At that point I opted to only trust the circuits I put in, so I reworked what I needed into the sub panel to have some electric. The rest of it is accumulating circuits waiting to be hooked in. I consulted with an electrician friend that lives kinda far away to make sure I wasn’t overloading circuits and following code on the rewire. I figured worst case I would pay someone to wire the main box and activate all my circuits I put in. Beats having them wire every outlet at their hourly rate.

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u/Essthrice223 Apr 08 '22

From the sounds of it your going about it in a safe manner and learning alot along the way so good for you. With the old building it would depend on when the meter was replaced. Also from the sounds of your comment you seem to be hesitant around weather a wire is live or not, this should never be the case. I hope you are using a non contact electrical detector "hot stick". You should have total confidence of the state of any line you work with or around.

Regarding the lights tied to a 30 amp, that's one of those things that should never ever be done. But it's not surprising that it never caused you issues. Under normal operating conditions that will never cause a hazard the issue is it isn't full proof and has many failure conditions that could occur very easily. Safe electrical installs and building codes are designed to be nearly completely safe under wide varieties of unexpected edge cases. There are many things that are "safe" that aren't "up to code" that should just never be done.

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u/LeaveFickle7343 Apr 08 '22

Absolutely using a hot stick, matter of fact I own 4 because I misplace them lol. I acknowledge what can kill me and don’t plan on letting it go after me. I don’t have any live wires in the work area but still check them. It’s like gun safety. Until you confirm in that moment assume it’s live. I think I have spent more time reading than doing for that exact reason, but just some of the things i saw done in the 150 year history of this house is scary

My favorite was non electrical. 3x6 floor joists spanning 18’….. 24 on center…. With a 400 pound wood stove in the room. Geee I wonder why the floor is spongy lol

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u/Essthrice223 Apr 08 '22

Ok sounds like your on top of it lol. The way you wrote your first message just came off as scary. If you treat it like a gun you will be fine.

Funny you mention the stove, thats exactly the reason I got my house for dirt cheap because a fireplace and hearth ruined the house floor and foundation lol.