Is It Time To Replace My Old And Outdated Electrical Panel?

 

"What is the load? Where is this house at? Can it even in its present state, except an electric charging station? It's best to be ahead of the game when it comes to knowing if this is gonna happen to your home, be proactive."

 

- Rodney Jessen,  Home Service Expert

 

Rodney Jessen a Home Service Expert from OutToday joins Jim Klauck - aka Check A Pro Joe on this episode.  Jim and Rodney talk about, "When is it time to replace my old outdated electrical panel?"

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
We take it for granted.
What is it?
It's our electricity.
When we go into a room,
we flip the light switch,
we press the door for the garage door opener to open the garage door and it opens hair dryer,
refrigerator TV.
You name it.
It's electricity.
And most of us actually,
all of us who are viewing this have always had electricity.

(00:24):
If you,
if you grew up without electricity,
it means you're probably in a poor section of,
of town,
but most of us are very familiar with electricity.
Actually,
some of our cars are now powered by it.
Question is,
is your electrical panel up to par?
Hm.
I've asked Rodney Jessen from OutToday home services to join me to talk about your electrical panel to make sure that it is sized properly.

(00:50):
Rodney,
how are you doing?
Great.
How are you?
I'm fantastic.
Thank you so much.
So,
in the greater Seattle area,
there's some older homes and you do come across some older electrical panels,
don't you?
Yes,
we do.
Not just in the Seattle area,
but also out in Bellevue and other older parts of King County,
we have homes that were built in the fifties,

(01:12):
sixties.
We even have some in the forties and the electrical has been upgraded from time to time.
But for the most part as things are added,
uh,
a lot of electricians and maybe it was the neighbor that helped or the homeowner themselves,
they have blinders on.
We're just gonna get power for this new thing and they don't look at comprehensively,

(01:35):
what does that do to the overall system and the load coming into the house?
And that could be a big problem.
Uh,
it,
every summer typically,
uh,
heat exacerbates electrical connection problems and we get a call or two,
the power companies here,
our meter is caught fire.
We have no power and that's a,

(01:55):
that's a tough time now to talk about a major change to your home,
it's gonna have to be done quickly and it,
it probably may be more expensive with COVID.
Now,
maybe certain materials aren't even available and have to use more expensive materials.
Uh,
a new thing that never happened before in my life in the trades is actually having to source parts because of COVID.

(02:18):
So it's best to be ahead of the game when it comes to knowing if this is gonna happen to your home,
be proactive.
So if someone still has,
uh,
a panel box and there's fuses in there,
that's old,
um,
if you don't have a 200 AMP service,

(02:39):
that's all too right.
You know,
it,
it probably is.
And now we're adding a whole another layer.
We multiple times a week,
get requests and install charging stations for electric cars.
They're popular in our area.
And that puts a whole another demand on the panel.
So when we go out,

(02:59):
of course,
we will assess the whole system.
What is the history,
what is the load?
Where is this house at?
Can it even in its present state except an electric charging station?
Uh So before we,
we,
we'll make sure the customer does not get caught out.
Uh You know,
when we're out there,

(03:19):
anything that we are looking at,
if,
if they're close or they're over,
we're gonna let them know.
So if you think you've got an electrical panel issue and it could be a number of things,
your breakers are tripping a lot.
Um You might hear a humming from it.
Something might be warm in there,
which is never good.

(03:40):
You just have Rodney and his team from out today come out today to take a look.
What happens when you come out to take a look.
What's the inspection look like?
Well,
we're gonna pull the cover off the panel and we're gonna physically look and see if there's any damage.
Uh That's the eye.
So the first thing,
second,
we're gonna look at the high load areas and see if there's any damage there.

(04:00):
Third,
we're gonna do a load calculation,
something that Journeyman electricians are taught to do,
which will tell us where we're at is the bag full?
Is the bag over full or do we have room?
Wow.
Yeah,
there you go.
It's so important to have the right size electrical panel.
I always feel comfortable too if I have a couple extra slots,

(04:22):
which means I could add extra circuits easily without adding a sub panel maybe.
But it's funny with electrical.
So just because you have slots doesn't mean you have room electrically.
So we look physically,
yeah,
there's some slots.
Then we look electrically.
What is,
what is the wattage and the ampage that's actually being used.

(04:43):
We,
we can put a gauge on it and tell at any given moment,
but we're trained as electricians to use our code and we can predict in a,
in,
in,
in the most extreme circumstance in the house and its current condition what it will use.
And um the electoral code is over 100 years old.
It's,
it's old,
it's upgraded every three years and it is amazingly accurate when predicting what's gonna happen with an electrical system.

(05:10):
It's obvious don't mess with your own electrical system.
It can be very dangerous.
Call Rodney and his team over at OutToday home services.
All of his information is located in the description of the podcast.
Thanks Rodney.
Appreciate it.
Thanks.