I did and the first thing that popped up was a wholesale distributor. So we’re looking at the cost to pull the meter, the cost to replace the main breaker, and the labor. Worst case would be to buy a new box that matches the original breakers unless that’s illegal.
I’m more concerned as to why the breaker shows obvious electrical damage.
I did and it was 
I’m not sure about the etiquette of in-lining images here, so I’ll link instead.
I replaced 2 Federal Pacific 100A 16-position panels with 2 QO 200A 40-position ones, as well as adding a 100A subpanel for the common areas (it is a 2-family house). Below the panels are 3 CT-based digital meters to keep the electric company honest - I’ve complained of fast meters in the past and they’ve come out, replaced them and taken them back to the shop and a month later I get “We tested them and didn’t find anything wrong, but here’s a $5000 credit for your bill”. Yup, a 5K credit on a residential bill. :smack:
You may notice that there aren’t exactly a lot of circuits coming out of these panels. That’s because the majority of the power on each floor goes to a 120/240 15A fuse box. 4 fuses - old enough that line and neutral were both fused as per the code at the time. As I renovate the house, the old wiring is being phased out for new work on individual circuits.
Westinghouse breakers fail and are now hard to replace. It sounds llike there is some dammage to the panel busses.
If it were my house I would get three bids on getting the work done not one. And I would have two bids, one just replacement and a second bid to increase the size of the main.
I’m licensed too and heartily endorse this post. Some jobs just scream “hire a professional” maybe not the kid who showed up the first time though. If money’s tight you might be able to ask around for a semi-retired guy who’s just doing some jobs here and there for vacation money or whatever. I know a lot of guys here who do that kind of work. Go to an electrical supply place and check around. The best thing about those types of electricians is they have a lot experience behind them.
Best of luck.
I had my box replaced-at my direction. I just wasn’t comfortable with it. It was quite old. $1800 isn’t out of line. A new box, new conduit, new breakers, the call to the power company to disconnect the house at the transformer (around here they charge to disconnect and charge to connect), time, and the experience to do all of this without blowing anything up. What the OP needs is another electrician to look at the breaker. It may be hard to replace, but not $1800 hard.
Yes, I forgot to mention that if I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen a part fail because of a loose connection I’d be doing pretty well. The arcing at the terminal might very well have just been an improperly tightened connection. A new breaker and proper termination might be all that’s required.
rbroome:
In regards to that quote, is this possible? :
My house has a lone breaker by the meter. I’m guess it will shut the power off to the whole house, so one would be able to work on the inside main breaker without having the utility company getting involved.
PS Thanks again for all of the replies.
intolt
Bingo.
If you have a disconnect outside next to your meter than it is likely that you can service this panel with the power off and safe.
Any way to provide photos?
Oooh! Electrician porn! Quite an upgrade there - going from Flames, Pops and Explodes breakers to QO. I’ll wager the immediate area is cooler and quieter now - I’ve never seen an FPE panel that didn’t hum and get warm. :eek:
On the plus side you don’t get many nuisance trips with them. 
If you can shut off your power with a mechanical switch then lock it in the off position while you work on the box. Make sure everthing is shut off before you turn on/off the main feed. I see no reason why you can’t replace the box yourself unless the pro’s want to chime in. it’s easier than wiring a 3 way switch. My only question would be the need for buying new breakers to replace the ones that currently work.
In my professional opinion he still needs an electrician to do this job. The assessment of the first electrician is questionable and/or he is correct and had good reason to replace the whole panel.
To disagree with the electricians solution then to accept his trouble shooting is a bad idea.
It’s a LOT of work and far more complex than a 3-way switch. The only panel replacement I’d call “easy” is if you’re replacing a panel with the exact same kind.
In the real world, the large knockouts for the main entrance are in a different location, bus bars are in different places, branch circuit wires were cut only long enough to reach the old bus and are 1/2" too short to reach the new bus because the new panel is larger, and so forth.
It’s not exactly rare to need to run a new conduit and service entrance from the meter can to the panel to deal with the main breaker’s new location, and it’s also not unheard of to need to mount rows of junction boxes immediately next to the panel to contain the splices needed to extend the branch circuits so they reach the breakers and/or bus bars. (A breaker panel is not a junction box, so there should be no wire nuts inside of it.)
As for using the old breakers or not - I vote not. If the panel is being replaced because the main breaker’s bad and no longer available, chances are really good that the old breakers can’t be used in the new panel. Also, there’s no time like now to update the system and bring things into code. Your local jurisdiction may require you to install AFCI (arc-fault) breakers on circuits supplying receptacles in bedrooms, for example.
the is a lot of electrical code to know and technique to do correctly for replacing or installing a breaker panel. done improperly fire and death can result even years down the road. not a job for some one who doesn’t know the electrical code as it applies to residences and has lots of electrical experience well beyond recepticles, switches and fixtures.
Thanks! (I think :D)
Quite true. Here’s 2 other pictures of my FPE -> QO replacement. In this first one, you can see where the old FPE panels were, located in front of the yellow unpainted areas of the backboard. This likely isn’t the first replacement that happened here - behind the meter bases you can see un-painted wood which was likely where original fuse boxes and A-base or round-base meters were located. You can see 3 junction boxes for extending circuits to the new panels. Also visible on the left (and hanging behind the lower right of the backboard) are some cables cut and labeled “DEAD”. These will be removed as the house is renovated, but in the meantime both near and far ends are cut and tagged. I don’t know what the “coffee can lid” cover on the top of the left meter base is for - as far as I can tell, service always entered via the back of the meter base. Perhaps this dual meter base was planned for outdoor use and installed indoors as a last-minute change when it was originally installed (long before I bought the house). All I know is it presumably passed inspection then and wasn’t mentioned during the inspection for the panel relocation.
At the top of this next photo, you can see a second, larger, junction box. This one was installed for cables that would have reached the new panels, but which were too damaged at the ends to use. These mostly had a primitive form of AC (Armored Cable, commonly called BX) jacket which was a flat wrap, over cloth + rubber insulated conductors. These had dried out and become brittle and needed to be cut back to the point where there was enough flexibility left to safely work with them.
Hopefully this will illustrate why what seems to be a straightforward panel swap often isn’t.
BTW, the orange and black/yellow stripe “wires” in the middle of the second picture aren’t wires at all - they’re fiber optic cables. The black/yellow stripe is a Verizon run (solid black indicates a fiber filled with flammable “icky-pic” which isn’t allowed indoors - black/yellow indicates a combined outdoor/indoor rating). The green wire is a grounding conductor which runs to the water line where it enters the house. As part of the upgrade, ground rods were also driven into the ground below the new panels (visible in the picture in my earlier post).
Good post. I see the wisdom of going with new breakers and I understand your point about different entrance points. Having to wire all the way back to the meter is definitely adding to the project. If not for something like that then the worst case scenario would be to add 2 buss boxes above the main to keep things tidy. It might even be a good idea to do this anyway as a way of making future swaps easier and take out the aggravation of trying to make stuff fit. That way you start with new wire from the main box to the busses, which are set from that point on.
What is the difference in cost between standard breakers and AFCI breakers and is there a reason not to use them for all the circuits such as one with a compressor on it?
On an unrelated note, what do you do with old cloth wound wire that is in flexible conduit? Can it be pulled through and replaced with spool wire? My house has been partially upgraded and I’ve thought about replacing the rest. The stuff seems to crumble around ceiling lights.
Here are some photos:
Visible Damage just to the right of center
I haven’t had a chance to read the latest replies, but will do shortly.
Wow! My first thread on Straight Dope has over 30 replies.
intolt
Yes but those codes should be available from the city or county. I just went through this with an airplane hanger. The city spelled out everything down to the type of grounding connectors to be used. This was a complete addition from the meter on so it was all straight foward wiring. I agree this could be a real mess but it can also be simple depending on what the op has to work with.
It would be nice to see an itemized estimate to get an idea of what the electrician thinks is needed.
AFCI breakers cost about three times as much.
if you are speaking of armored cable (BX) then the wires can’t be removed and the armor used as conduit. you pull that armored cable and pull new cable.
old wires have to be handled gently to keep insulation from breaking off. age and the small boxes does cause deterioration.
