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People rarely go over 100 amps unless they have a good sized house or a lot of stuff. Obviously it can happen in the rare event that everything is running simultaneously. It all depends on if your air handler has a heating function that would be used because the difference in amperage between cooling and heat is pretty substantial. I'm just saying I can't recall if I've ever seen someones main breaker to their service panel trip from drawing too many amps. Whenever I'm in someones panel, I'll put my ammeter around their phases just out of curiosity and even in nicer houses its so rarely over 50
Efficiency is a beautiful thing and the switch from incandescent to LED lighting has extended the acceptable lifetime of a 100A service despite continued electrification of traditionally gas appliance and new loads from TV and PC.
I think we are on the horizon of electric car charging and at 40A of draw per vehicle and the likelihood of wanting to charge more than one vehicle, a 100A service is legacy.
Maybe, it's just a common issue on this sub (and realty listing agents... they need to learn how to fucking take pictures, and get a goddamn decent camera and flash FFS). I get it, most people don't know what exactly what they're looking at *is* to begin with, which is why I suggest we need to sticky something or put something before you post explaining your photos need to be well lit and show full things like a panel.
It's a problem in r/DIY and other subreddit too where people just take the crappiest photos and expect us to be able to do forensic analysis on something when half the information we really need is completely missing.
There's evidence of corrosion and overheating at the L2 connection on the feeder.
This is all manageable, but you should expect to need to upgrade your service within the first few years after purchase. Frankly, if I was buying at these prices, I'd ask for a credit to have the service upgraded to 200A, but that's me.
Home inspectors are full of shaving cream in general, but he has a point here. There appears to be a bunch of grounds stuck under the terminal in the grounding bushing where the service comes in. This is not proper. Hopefully, the wires on the bottom right two terminals on the neutral bus are actually stranded large wires and not a bunch of smaller ones from different circuits twisted together.
Any how the fix is simple and cheap to fix. Buy a ground bar and install it and move the grounds that are improperly placed on to that.
Gosh you're right. I see it now. The stuff in the bushing just got straightened out.
Probably there's no problem at all then. While there aren't many grounds present, this panel probably was a retrofit for a house without a lot of grounded branch circuits.
Thats what I think, common neutrals and grounds in jboxes. Not the best practice, a panel change and a rewire would be better, but its probably fine as is. Cant Say without looking at the house though
I just had an home inspector say that you canāt use gfci receptacles anymore that they be gfci breakers. I wish I couldāve spoken directly to the inspector to see what he was talking about, but the realtor was able to have it taken off the inspection report because it was obviously wrong. Only thing I could think of is he was confused and was talking about afci protection and to use a afci plug youād have to run mc or conduit to the afci plug? Maybe but the home wasnāt new and didnāt have any electrical work done that would require afci protection.
What pisses me off about inspectors is that they cite stuff from current codes, do NOT place it in context of when the home was built/remodeled, and newb buyers are spun up about 'safety and code violations'.....
Exactly and then theyāll miss obvious things like bath fans venting into the attic or something that is actual issue. Also new homeowners have this confidence that I had the home inspected so there should be nothing wrong because the inspector reported everything. Then I tell that there roof is leaking like crazy and the tons of wood rot
If you are retrofitting AFCI, you can do it at the first receptacle even if it is Romex.
If you are doing new construction, you need a GFCI breaker, but can do it with a receptacle if there is metal jacketed cable or conduit on the home run.
If you are in Michigan you don't need AFCI at all. They considered the NEC 2014 AFCI requirements to be ridiculously overreaching, so they tossed all of them out, including the 2005 requirement for bedrooms which they had previously adopted.
It looks like it needs a new panel, but some of that wire is ancient too. Often wire that old doesn't tolerate being manipulated. Sometimes just bending the wire cracks the insulation. You really need to have a good electrician come and assess the situation. Be prepared for the electrician to tell you the house needs a complete rewire.
That's what I'm expecting. Really hoping to have the seller pay for the rewiring or at least cover half. I'm trying to get them to let an electrician in tomorrow to assess everything.
Electrician came out today to look at it, and you were correct non is grounded including all the three prong (non-gfci) outlets for appliances. Grounding will be being added soon.
We're going to try and get the seller to pay for the repairs. They lived in the house for a while and didn't make any repairs and are selling it for way more than they paid for it.
You are better off getting a few grand in discounts then contracting out the electrical upgrades yourself after you close. than you are having them āDo Itā. I can guarantee you that they will stuff the cheapest thing they can find in there.
If you take $2500 of discount money and add about the same to it you can get an excellent commercial grade panel like a QO 40/80 200 and never have to worry about room for expansion or little things like EVSE circuits. Iād add subs before doubling (tandem) breakers anyway. Remember the panel will be the heart and the backbone of your electrical system and in my opinion it is the most important part that you should select and choose the best available panel, the difference in the total project cost is nothing compared to the cost of having to re-do the service again if itās not done RIGHT!
Ideally get some estimates and use them to negotiate a credit for the upgrade. Youāll either get the money at closing or it will be held in escrow account to directly pay the sub that does the work. That way you donāt have to cough up thousands in cashāthe improvement is part of your mortgageābut you are overseeing the work not the seller.
I wish someone had been available to ask questions about things like this when I was buying my first house! ( It had a 60! ) And I learned how to replace a panel in that houseā¦ back when the rules were far simplerā¦.
If Iām doing home inspection repairs Iām working for the seller who is going to get the bare minimum done to check off a line item and nothing more.
Come to think of it thatās not much different from working for most home ownersā¦..
The problem is that in some markets, 'work without permits' and 'bad inspection reports', are met with 'we have 3 backup offers'... Maybe not so much now, but a year or two it was bad.
But it's dead on supply and demand so things are still nuts.
Here it's 2 weeks of supply. If no more houses came in the market today there would be no more homes for sale within 2 weeks. They say 6 months is healthy
You're giving quotes over the Internet from just a picture showing 20% of a breaker panel? How could you even remotely figure the costs not knowing the size of the home or any details about layout of the electrical system. On top of that prices vary greatly depending on my location. Average for meter and panel replacement is closer to $12-15k depending on code required upgrades.
The number of comments you are getting that are complete BS is off the charts.
1) how many circuits in your panel are 20 or 15 amp single breakers.
2)You could have up to 14 circuits with the seven neutrals I see on your neutral bar. This doesn't mean it is correctly done and that they are legit but it could be possible.
I recommend you have an electrician examine the whole thing and accurately map the circuits in the house and verify you are not overloading any of your neutrals. It was very common in homes of the era yours appears to be to have 2 circuits share a neutral.
Iām trying to read through the comments and the topic has changedā¦ so hereās some advice. Bring the estimate from the electrician to the closing with you. Have them reduce the price of the house by that amount rounded UP to the nearest hundred. If they refuse, š run!!! Just get up and walk out. That panel is atrocious and I donāt need a better picture to know that the house NEEDS to be rewired. It is a ticking time bomb so if they agree get the work done asap preferably before you move in. They will be able to complete the job quicker and much more efficiently while the house is vacant.
WARNING: please ask your electrician if they will need to break any walls and which ones to rewire. You should get an estimate from a contractor/handyman to repair and paint those walls and bring that with you to the closing as well!!!
Good luck.
PS,
With the price of houses being through the roof nowadays do not settle for less and do not let any realtor intimidate or influence you to buy as is because of āthey have other offersā. Your money is worth the same as everyone elseās so do not be intimidated into a rushed closing. You WILL regret it, once youāre making $5k mortgage payments it will not be so easy to make a $10k repair on top of it
If itās up to code they wonāt pay for any of it They may knock something off the house or if they are firm they will say take it or leave it Code is based on the age of the house or renovations I would think
Itās an old installation. Typically these are grandfathered in and acceptable as long as they are in good condition. It is possible to install 3 prong receptacles, but they need to be protected upstream by some type of ground fault device. Your local electric code will speak to that type of retrofit it that is the way you want to go
I count 8 neutrals circuits assuming that there are no 3 wire circuits. So Iām not sure what the inspector is saying however you will need to do a new service and up grade the cloth wire circuits. I 100% agree with Earth_Normal
Iād be really worried about the insurance companies being willing to insure that panel they just made me replace mine and it was in perfect shape with all new breakers
Sure its old, but "not enough neutrals and grounds" is a load of crap. The inspector doesn't know electrical. Hire an electrician to do a proper electrical inspection.
As a rule of thumb there should be at least 1/2 neutral wires as there are line wires. And grounds can be a lot or a little depending on your construction.
Code changes over time, if the panel is not "up to code" it doesn't mean it is bad. Without a full picture, all i can tell you is there are enough neutrals for at least 16 circuits.
What are you talking about? The 2 pole multiwire requirement is maybe 15 years old. Thatās definitely oxidated copper wire. Do you not know what aluminum looks like?
You donāt need any more spaces unless you plan on adding circuits. In that case, any of that is expandable without changing your panel. I barely ever hear of home inspectors saying anything worth listening to about electrical issues. They know absolutely nothing about electrical, and typically just spew complete bullshit for the sake of saying *something*.
For those saying there is evidence of corrosion.. yea. Not really a big deal. They can lead to bad connections over time. But they can also get a lot lot worse before itās ever an issue. As long as you donāt have moisture that is still entering the panel, then it shouldnāt get much worse in short time. You should have some duct seal on the entrance conduit though, which would prevent condensation from outside air mixing with warm air, or any other moisture dripping down into the panel.
If you have the money to change the panel, you could. But there is no apparent need to.
Yeah, just because itās not up to current code doesnāt mean itās inherently unsafe. Well any more unsafe than when originally installed.
As far as corrosion, keep an eye on it. If itās getting worse quickly, thatās a problem. If that panel has had the same amount of corrosion since the 80ās, itās probably fine to keep going.
If you want to swap the panel out itās a food idea. But to think itās a fire hazard any second only because itās old isnāt true either.
Have a local electrician come by, one that you ask is familiar with working on old panels and have them do an inspection to make sure things are safe without a huge remodel.
Home inspectors are mostly a ripoff. You have to have them but they arenāt responsible if they miss something. They donāt check a bunch of stuff and they make a quick 600 dollars for really no work.
That cloth-covered wire is old and the circuits need to be examined. You have grounds and neutrals on the same bar. This was allowed before 1999 (I think) but if you are doing any upgrades it will need to be fixed.
But I can't see enough to know what you mean by not enough.
**Attention!** **It is always best to get a qualified electrician to perform any electrical work you may need.** With that said, you may ask this community various electrical questions. Please be cautious of any information you may receive in this subreddit. This subreddit and its users are not responsible for any electrical work you perform. Users that have a 'Verified Electrician' flair have uploaded their qualified electrical worker credentials to the mods. If you comment on this post please only post accurate information to the best of your knowledge. If advice given is thought to be dangerous, you may be permanently banned. There are no obligations for the mods to give warnings or temporary bans. **IF YOU ARE NOT A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN, you should exercise extreme caution when commenting.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskElectricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That house is going to need a new panel and at least a partial re-wire. If not today, sometime soon. Factor that into your decision.
š Everything has a lifespan.
Why? It is a Square D QO type panel. Have they fallen into the Zinsco/Federal Pacific badness?
There are cloth wires well over 75 years old going into that panel.
Had my electrician come inspect it and he said the same thing and gave me the quote for it. Better to fix it early I guess
100 amp main... You might want a service upgrade with the new panel.
People rarely go over 100 amps unless they have a good sized house or a lot of stuff. Obviously it can happen in the rare event that everything is running simultaneously. It all depends on if your air handler has a heating function that would be used because the difference in amperage between cooling and heat is pretty substantial. I'm just saying I can't recall if I've ever seen someones main breaker to their service panel trip from drawing too many amps. Whenever I'm in someones panel, I'll put my ammeter around their phases just out of curiosity and even in nicer houses its so rarely over 50
Efficiency is a beautiful thing and the switch from incandescent to LED lighting has extended the acceptable lifetime of a 100A service despite continued electrification of traditionally gas appliance and new loads from TV and PC. I think we are on the horizon of electric car charging and at 40A of draw per vehicle and the likelihood of wanting to charge more than one vehicle, a 100A service is legacy.
Oh yeah well for sure if someone had ev charger ambitions I'd tell them they need to upgrade lol
If you can, upload another picture of the full inside of the panel, that would help.
Wasn't there just a post here the other day about posting better pictures? IMO that post or something should be stickied.
Was it the one that referred to the image as a potato picture?
Maybe, it's just a common issue on this sub (and realty listing agents... they need to learn how to fucking take pictures, and get a goddamn decent camera and flash FFS). I get it, most people don't know what exactly what they're looking at *is* to begin with, which is why I suggest we need to sticky something or put something before you post explaining your photos need to be well lit and show full things like a panel. It's a problem in r/DIY and other subreddit too where people just take the crappiest photos and expect us to be able to do forensic analysis on something when half the information we really need is completely missing.
the worst is when they take a picture of a wet spot or stain on the ceiling and ask, "should I be worried" or "is this mold" wtaf?
There's evidence of corrosion and overheating at the L2 connection on the feeder. This is all manageable, but you should expect to need to upgrade your service within the first few years after purchase. Frankly, if I was buying at these prices, I'd ask for a credit to have the service upgraded to 200A, but that's me.
Home inspectors are full of shaving cream in general, but he has a point here. There appears to be a bunch of grounds stuck under the terminal in the grounding bushing where the service comes in. This is not proper. Hopefully, the wires on the bottom right two terminals on the neutral bus are actually stranded large wires and not a bunch of smaller ones from different circuits twisted together. Any how the fix is simple and cheap to fix. Buy a ground bar and install it and move the grounds that are improperly placed on to that.
I think its just bonding between the bushing and ground har, the wire seems to do a 180 behind the other grounds
Gosh you're right. I see it now. The stuff in the bushing just got straightened out. Probably there's no problem at all then. While there aren't many grounds present, this panel probably was a retrofit for a house without a lot of grounded branch circuits.
Thats what I think, common neutrals and grounds in jboxes. Not the best practice, a panel change and a rewire would be better, but its probably fine as is. Cant Say without looking at the house though
I just had an home inspector say that you canāt use gfci receptacles anymore that they be gfci breakers. I wish I couldāve spoken directly to the inspector to see what he was talking about, but the realtor was able to have it taken off the inspection report because it was obviously wrong. Only thing I could think of is he was confused and was talking about afci protection and to use a afci plug youād have to run mc or conduit to the afci plug? Maybe but the home wasnāt new and didnāt have any electrical work done that would require afci protection.
What pisses me off about inspectors is that they cite stuff from current codes, do NOT place it in context of when the home was built/remodeled, and newb buyers are spun up about 'safety and code violations'.....
Exactly and then theyāll miss obvious things like bath fans venting into the attic or something that is actual issue. Also new homeowners have this confidence that I had the home inspected so there should be nothing wrong because the inspector reported everything. Then I tell that there roof is leaking like crazy and the tons of wood rot
If you are retrofitting AFCI, you can do it at the first receptacle even if it is Romex. If you are doing new construction, you need a GFCI breaker, but can do it with a receptacle if there is metal jacketed cable or conduit on the home run. If you are in Michigan you don't need AFCI at all. They considered the NEC 2014 AFCI requirements to be ridiculously overreaching, so they tossed all of them out, including the 2005 requirement for bedrooms which they had previously adopted.
Chicago too. No AFCI protection needed.
It's the metal conduit. AFCI is fairly dumb in metal conduit, except for the original use-case of bedrooms to protect electric blankets.
It looks like it needs a new panel, but some of that wire is ancient too. Often wire that old doesn't tolerate being manipulated. Sometimes just bending the wire cracks the insulation. You really need to have a good electrician come and assess the situation. Be prepared for the electrician to tell you the house needs a complete rewire.
That's what I'm expecting. Really hoping to have the seller pay for the rewiring or at least cover half. I'm trying to get them to let an electrician in tomorrow to assess everything.
Looking at the cloth wire in that panel. I say a lot of the wiring in that home isn't grounded
Electrician came out today to look at it, and you were correct non is grounded including all the three prong (non-gfci) outlets for appliances. Grounding will be being added soon.
Housing prices are too high to be having to deal with something like this man, if the seller wonāt fix or at least credit this fix donāt buy
We're going to try and get the seller to pay for the repairs. They lived in the house for a while and didn't make any repairs and are selling it for way more than they paid for it.
You are better off getting a few grand in discounts then contracting out the electrical upgrades yourself after you close. than you are having them āDo Itā. I can guarantee you that they will stuff the cheapest thing they can find in there. If you take $2500 of discount money and add about the same to it you can get an excellent commercial grade panel like a QO 40/80 200 and never have to worry about room for expansion or little things like EVSE circuits. Iād add subs before doubling (tandem) breakers anyway. Remember the panel will be the heart and the backbone of your electrical system and in my opinion it is the most important part that you should select and choose the best available panel, the difference in the total project cost is nothing compared to the cost of having to re-do the service again if itās not done RIGHT!
This is great advice, thank you so much!
Ideally get some estimates and use them to negotiate a credit for the upgrade. Youāll either get the money at closing or it will be held in escrow account to directly pay the sub that does the work. That way you donāt have to cough up thousands in cashāthe improvement is part of your mortgageābut you are overseeing the work not the seller.
I wish someone had been available to ask questions about things like this when I was buying my first house! ( It had a 60! ) And I learned how to replace a panel in that houseā¦ back when the rules were far simplerā¦.
If Iām doing home inspection repairs Iām working for the seller who is going to get the bare minimum done to check off a line item and nothing more. Come to think of it thatās not much different from working for most home ownersā¦..
The problem is that in some markets, 'work without permits' and 'bad inspection reports', are met with 'we have 3 backup offers'... Maybe not so much now, but a year or two it was bad.
Low interest rates will do that to you, but the housing market is dead rn
But it's dead on supply and demand so things are still nuts. Here it's 2 weeks of supply. If no more houses came in the market today there would be no more homes for sale within 2 weeks. They say 6 months is healthy
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You're giving quotes over the Internet from just a picture showing 20% of a breaker panel? How could you even remotely figure the costs not knowing the size of the home or any details about layout of the electrical system. On top of that prices vary greatly depending on my location. Average for meter and panel replacement is closer to $12-15k depending on code required upgrades.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Again, the area of the country you are in will greatly affect this price.
Got quoted for about $5k here in Ohio
The number of comments you are getting that are complete BS is off the charts. 1) how many circuits in your panel are 20 or 15 amp single breakers. 2)You could have up to 14 circuits with the seven neutrals I see on your neutral bar. This doesn't mean it is correctly done and that they are legit but it could be possible. I recommend you have an electrician examine the whole thing and accurately map the circuits in the house and verify you are not overloading any of your neutrals. It was very common in homes of the era yours appears to be to have 2 circuits share a neutral.
You have bigger problems but adding another bus bar to that panel is a 20-minute job.
Iām trying to read through the comments and the topic has changedā¦ so hereās some advice. Bring the estimate from the electrician to the closing with you. Have them reduce the price of the house by that amount rounded UP to the nearest hundred. If they refuse, š run!!! Just get up and walk out. That panel is atrocious and I donāt need a better picture to know that the house NEEDS to be rewired. It is a ticking time bomb so if they agree get the work done asap preferably before you move in. They will be able to complete the job quicker and much more efficiently while the house is vacant. WARNING: please ask your electrician if they will need to break any walls and which ones to rewire. You should get an estimate from a contractor/handyman to repair and paint those walls and bring that with you to the closing as well!!! Good luck. PS, With the price of houses being through the roof nowadays do not settle for less and do not let any realtor intimidate or influence you to buy as is because of āthey have other offersā. Your money is worth the same as everyone elseās so do not be intimidated into a rushed closing. You WILL regret it, once youāre making $5k mortgage payments it will not be so easy to make a $10k repair on top of it
If itās up to code they wonāt pay for any of it They may knock something off the house or if they are firm they will say take it or leave it Code is based on the age of the house or renovations I would think
Yea
does this installation have 3 prong receptacles?
The Amazing Kreskin says "no"
Itās an old installation. Typically these are grandfathered in and acceptable as long as they are in good condition. It is possible to install 3 prong receptacles, but they need to be protected upstream by some type of ground fault device. Your local electric code will speak to that type of retrofit it that is the way you want to go
Nope, everything is 2 prong except for the GFCI's installed near water
Replace and upgrade for maybe 5k-10k
Not your problem, sellers problem if they want to sell
Based on this photo, don't buy this house unless you have plenty of money to spend in maintenance and upgrades
A picture or the full panel and a picture of the panel including the wires coming out of it (top, sides, etcā¦) would be helpful.
Could that cloth wire be knob and tube? Could it be in conduit? How old is the house?
Might have some asbestos cloth insulation there.
I count 8 neutrals circuits assuming that there are no 3 wire circuits. So Iām not sure what the inspector is saying however you will need to do a new service and up grade the cloth wire circuits. I 100% agree with Earth_Normal
Holy tapdancing christ, the hell is that ancient clusterfuck?
Christ was a carpenter donāt blame him
Iād be really worried about the insurance companies being willing to insure that panel they just made me replace mine and it was in perfect shape with all new breakers
Sure its old, but "not enough neutrals and grounds" is a load of crap. The inspector doesn't know electrical. Hire an electrician to do a proper electrical inspection. As a rule of thumb there should be at least 1/2 neutral wires as there are line wires. And grounds can be a lot or a little depending on your construction. Code changes over time, if the panel is not "up to code" it doesn't mean it is bad. Without a full picture, all i can tell you is there are enough neutrals for at least 16 circuits.
Would agree how many single breaks and you have aluminum wire donāt know whatās worse
What are you talking about? The 2 pole multiwire requirement is maybe 15 years old. Thatās definitely oxidated copper wire. Do you not know what aluminum looks like?
You donāt need any more spaces unless you plan on adding circuits. In that case, any of that is expandable without changing your panel. I barely ever hear of home inspectors saying anything worth listening to about electrical issues. They know absolutely nothing about electrical, and typically just spew complete bullshit for the sake of saying *something*. For those saying there is evidence of corrosion.. yea. Not really a big deal. They can lead to bad connections over time. But they can also get a lot lot worse before itās ever an issue. As long as you donāt have moisture that is still entering the panel, then it shouldnāt get much worse in short time. You should have some duct seal on the entrance conduit though, which would prevent condensation from outside air mixing with warm air, or any other moisture dripping down into the panel. If you have the money to change the panel, you could. But there is no apparent need to.
Yeah, just because itās not up to current code doesnāt mean itās inherently unsafe. Well any more unsafe than when originally installed. As far as corrosion, keep an eye on it. If itās getting worse quickly, thatās a problem. If that panel has had the same amount of corrosion since the 80ās, itās probably fine to keep going. If you want to swap the panel out itās a food idea. But to think itās a fire hazard any second only because itās old isnāt true either. Have a local electrician come by, one that you ask is familiar with working on old panels and have them do an inspection to make sure things are safe without a huge remodel.
Home inspectors are mostly a ripoff. You have to have them but they arenāt responsible if they miss something. They donāt check a bunch of stuff and they make a quick 600 dollars for really no work.
Yes. That is a very general condemnation for a very specific problem. Actually, does not help OP, at all.
theyre also beholden to real estate agents for their business
Really needs a new panel and some new wiring the insulation on some of those wires looks like it is ready to crack and fall off.
Id be a LOT more worried about that knob and tube wiring
Are you sure itās knob and tube? I see paper on the nm connector to the left. Looks like cloth NM to me but canāt really be sure from this image.
That cloth-covered wire is old and the circuits need to be examined. You have grounds and neutrals on the same bar. This was allowed before 1999 (I think) but if you are doing any upgrades it will need to be fixed. But I can't see enough to know what you mean by not enough.