Is My Fuse Box Safe(cmprd to breakers)?
DavidAndersen
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
My insurance company doesn’t like my fuse panel in my home (built 1925). The main service runs into a 200 amp circuit panel and one of the circuits (60 amp breaker) in that panel feeds the fuse panel which has 9 circuits with 15 or 20 amp fuses (145 amps total).
I don’t like the idea of a 60 amp breaker servicing 145 amps of fuses but I’m not sure this is a problem. In any case, is there greater fire risk with a fuse box or some other reason to pull the fuse box and replace it with a breaker sub-panel?
Thanks.
Replies
It should probably be changed. I would run a service cable from the meter to the 200amp box (does it have a main breaker in it?) and then run new circuits back to the circuits still being serviced by the old fuse box.
You get out of life what you put into it......minus taxes.
Marv
We had a situation like that at my great great great great grandfathers house up in Maine. (built in 1792, remodeled a zillion times since then three times by me and my wife.) On the third floor is a fuse panel from my great grandfathers time that has very bad oxidation of the insulation of the wires going in and lousy craftsmanship in the wiring anyway. All horse hair plaster, no good way to get into the wall and re-wire or even cut back and replace the last foot or two of wire where oxidation problems are developing. Historic register property and haunted to boot as previously noted.
What I did is I switched out the 60 amp 220 volt breaker for a 30 amp 110 volt arc fault preventer and bound the neutrals. (there was no way to run it on two 30 amp arc faults due to the grounds, had to be done on one with common hot and neutral) While there are about six 15 and 20 fuses in that panel the only loads it ever sees are a few light bulbs and maybe a cell phone charger or a laptop. First winter the whole third floor went out when no one was in the home. pulled all the fuses in the spring when we opened it up and just started screwing them in until we found the one that popped the breaker and abandoned that circuit. With out the arc faults we probably would have burned the house down. as it stands we have a few outlets that don't get juice. no big deal in a 200 year old house with 17 bedrooms.
I'd recommend you supply the old fuse box from an arc fault breaker in the breaker panel and label the entire fuse box "arc Fault protected" It's cheap, doesn't involve ripping into the walls will provide enough juice for most loads so long as you can feed the blowdryers with a dedicated GFCI in the bathroom and get your family used to having less juice available on those circuits and it should satisfy your insurance company.
All the best
M
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
200 years old,17 bedrooms, haunted. i gotta ask do you have pics posted somewhere .i'm in the midwest we have house's almost 120 years old and falling down. it always is interesting to me about these really old house's back east. larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
Here are two. one with me on the rope swing. Cool old place. some evening I'll type up the ghost story for y'all.------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
wow! hard to imagine losing something like that to a fire. makes 50.00 for a arc fault seem like nothing.i'd have them on every circuit.
i'll be waiting for the haunted part,halloween is only 90 days away! larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
The "great Hall" living room is a trip, all fumed oak. Architecture by Stanford White and landscape by Fredrick Law Olmsted.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Edited 8/4/2007 1:49 pm ET by ShelterNerd
Edited 8/4/2007 1:49 pm ET by ShelterNerd
So where is this place? I can't believe how many BT'ers are here in NC. Looked at your website, super!!!
Bob ( exit 73 I-40)
It's up in Maine. (near Bethel) I still own a share but it's getting diluted. I'm hoping it will pass down to my brother and his kids so it can stay in the family.------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Did not look like NC. Neat place. I have the old family homeplace where I can sit in the Jacuzzi and look at the top of Mt. Mitchell. Working on setting up something to keep it in the family.
It is marginal code wise here in our county, I can not see a trailer when the trees are leaved out.
Edited 8/4/2007 12:13 am ET by rasconc
Ya I live down near Chapel Hill. You up in the mountains somewhere?
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
About 28 east of Asheville.
Drop in for a beer and some Q if you ever get down Chapel Hill way. We do have the best Q in NC here, no sweetened ketchup onit, just meat and vinegar...------------------
"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
I guess we are in the mid area on Q, I do love both. Locally it is not heavy ketchup but still different from the Eastern fare. Will keep it in mind. Will get in touch and swap cell#s sometime. I was born in Raleigh (while Pop was in school) and went to State for two ill-fated years. Do not get that way very often.
Bob
That is a stunning estate.
The thing that's stunning is the tax bill.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
The biggest risk is with pennies in the fuses. If no one is that stupid then fuses are actually more reliable than breakers.
The insurance co gripe about fuse boxes (aside from the pennies) comes from the fact that they're usually just 6-10 fuses and hence the circuits are apt to be overloaded, plus the wiring is apt to be substandard in other ways. So a fuse box is a red flag, even though the problem has nothing really to do with the fuse box itself.
When using power tools etc the fuses blow more easily than circuit breakers
trip. I can run a compressor on a 15A breaker but not on a 20A fuse. If the
fuses are rated appropriately for the wiring they may be safer than a breaker.
The age/condition of the wiring going to the old panel may be a larger concern.
Lack of a ground-- or knob and tube wiring-- could be an issue for the insurance
company (assuming of course that the old panel is in good condition). In Ottawa,
Canada I had to add GFI protection to the ungrounded K+T circuits at the behest
of the electrical inspector. This satisfied the fire inspector. My insurer only requires
a letter from a licensed electrician attesting to the wiring.
Of course, there are regular and slow-blow fuses (though likely the slow-blow ones are getting harder to find). Slow-blow fuses should be used in circuits with large motor loads.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
I've got time delay fuses on my thickness planer in my shop (240V).
In the past I have also used mini-breakers which were CSA approved
but can go scary weird.
> When using power tools etc the fuses blow more easily than circuit
> breakersTrue, which makes fuses much better for electronic equipment. They blow so fast that the equipment may be repairable. As you point out, that's not necessarily an advantage with tools.George Patterson
Absolutely, which is why I prefer fuses with older wiring.
Sometimes old fuse boxes show deterioration in the connections and busses that can be dangerous.
I'd at least kill the power, put a bright drop light in front, remove the fuses and cover, and check every connection and exposed current-carrying bit of metal to see if there is any discoloration/arcing and/or anything loose.
Ed
Edited 8/4/2007 9:23 am ET by edlee
Yeah, but of course you can get the same in breaker panels, and the panels have the additional point of failure of the snap-in bus, where a breaker with a bad spring contact can overheat the bus and damage the connections of breakers on either side.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
You've got to ask the right question, if you want the right answer!
Are fuses safe? Absolutely. Are fuses better than breakers? There is a case to be made for fuses responding faster, and therefore being safer than breakers.
So, what's the fuss all about? The insurance company is rightfully worried about ordinary people living in outdated homes. A fuse box is a suggestion to the insurance company that there's trouble brewing.
Old homes were built when "kitchen appliances" were something the bank gave out when you opened an account. Too few receptacles, too few circuits for a modern home. So it's no surprise that old homes see a greater use of extension cords ... and oversize fuses used to replace the 'too small' fuse that keeps blowing. What this means is that the wire is too small for all the electricity that flows through it, and gets hot ... leading to fires.
One way to prevent this from happening is to replace the fuse with a breaker. Since you can reset a breaker, it is believed that the occupant is less likely to replace the breaker with a larger one.
Less obvious is that breaker panels usually have room for more circuits than the fuse box they replace. This means that the new circuit someone runs gets it's own breaker, and won't simply be tied to another circuit.
Now, a note for everyone reading this: If your home has a fuse box, it almost certainly has several problems, much more dangerous, lurking out of site. Improper wiring methods, dangerous splices, missing grounds, lack of GFCI's, lack of required circuits, etc. While these may be 'legal' due to the age of the house, modern life requires more than the original wiring can deliver.
Replacing the fuse box will keep the insurance company happy; but you really need to do some major electrical work before the house will again be 'safe.'
The same comments apply to homes with early breaker panels: the wiring is no longer adequate.
> ... and oversize fuses used to replace the 'too small' fuse that
> keeps blowing.Do they still make Fustat fuses? Those things made that sort of thing (and pennies under the fuse) impossible.George Patterson
Those were pulled from the market about 20 years ago. I forget all the details, but complaints were that folks could actually remove the inserts and insert larger fuses -- they got sued by people who did this, I think. Of course they could do the same easier with regular fuses, so it was a stupid deal all in all, but that's these things work out.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
?????????????Rejection fuses (Type S) are still available. Fustat is a brand and they are still avaialble.http://homerepair.about.com/od/electricalrepair/ss/fuse_types_2.htmhttp://www.usahardware.com/inet/shop/home/electrical/fustats_fuse_plugs/30020/list.htm
http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/(ylnpfvqaznrvvl45uptix445)/ProductDetails.aspx?SKU=32720
http://www.cornerhardware.com/bussman_30_amp_125v_fustats/6739_6758_7025/3643Here is new equipment that uses them.http://www.nightscaping.com/addtrans.htm.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Guess I was mistaken. Haven't seen them anywhere for years, and I remember there was a big to-do about them back maybe 1985.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin