American here and every house I’ve lived in had the breaker box inside.
Texan here and every breaker panel I’ve ever seen has been in the garage.
To complete the degree symbol question: In Linux, hold ctrl+shift and type “u00b0” (u - zero - zero - b - zero).
I used to build luxury homes, now I do restoration / renovations.
Here in Alberta I have never seen or even heard until now of one of these ‘toe testers’. Plenty of steam shower nozzles in new homes, but they are usually finished with a round bezel flush to the wall. Don’t really want a boiling hot pipe sticking out of the wall.
I suppose I have probably seen a horizontal breaker box, but they are usually mounted vertically. The cables will all be from above, so any attaching at the bottom would have to do a u-turn. It is hard to imagine a situation where this would be advantageous. The preferred method is to mount a sheet of plywood to the wall first so there is lots of opportunity for the sparkies to do a nice, tidy job with the wiring and any related accessories (transformers, security and Ethernet panels, etc). Panels are never placed between studs, the cables usually enter through the sides after all.
It is not unusual for the main panel to be in the garage, especially with infills in older neighbourhoods with alley located overhead lines. There will still be a full size panel in the houses’ mechanical room however, running off the garage as a sub panel.
With the vast variation in climatic conditions across both the US and Canada I would think there is likely to be much more variation in building practices between jurisdictions rather than simply between nations.
I suspect there is much more similarity between practices here in Alberta and in Montana than there is between here and Coastal BC, or say between Montana and Louisiana.
Interesting. I lived in multiple places in the Northeast, Midwest, and in Southern California. I wonder what the difference is? Most have been in basements or first floor closets.
An outside panel would be a royal pain in a snow-belt winter.
I’m in Southern California. Not an expert/haven’t made a study, but my box and the other ones I can remember were outside. There was a secondary box inside my garage before we had the house rewired (still is, not worth having it removed) and an ancient indoor fuse box too (also non-working).
Could be multiple differences- I know some areas don’t have or need basements and some areas mostly don’t have attached garages. In my area, most houses don’t have garages, and those that exist are usually either behind the house or are basements converted to garages.Less common are multiple garages on a separate adjoining lot generally used to generate rental income. Couldn’t put the breaker panel in the garage in any of those situations except for the one where the garage and basement are the same place.
When we lived in Chicago it was in the basement. In Wisconsin, Indiana, and southern Illinois it’s been in the garage. When we lived in Indiana, my friend’s breaker box was outside, and I don’t think it had a lock. That just made me think of slasher movies! I don’t know what it would cost to have it moved into yhe house or garage, though.
And after having read this thread, we went to a couple of open houses and saw two horizontal breaker boxes in one afternoon! I guess they do exist here. 
I’ve lived in various places in Texas and I’ve never had the breaker panel in the garage. In the house where I grew up (built circa 1971), the panel was outside near the electric service entrance. In apartments I have had, the panel was in a closet, the laundry room, or kitchen. In my current home, the panel is in a linen closet in the dining room that is directly inside from the service entrance outside.
Maybe something that changed with when the house was built? Back when I lived in an apartment (built in the early 90’s), the panel was in the garage. The houses I’ve seen have mostly been built in the late 90’s and later. They all have them in the garage.
Are we all confusing our panels here? In the USA there’s typically the meter can, which is typically exterior to the house. You may have a second meter in some circumstances. There is probably a whole-house fuse block in series with the meter can – but there might not be. Then inside the house, garage, or basement there’s your fuse panel or break panel (depending on age of house). They’re typically located near the meter can because you only need a short run of wire. If you have multiple meter cans, you will have multiple panels.
And FWIW, here in Michigan when we have attached garages, we consider that “in the house.” I’m not speaking “NEC” but common vernacular. If my panel were in the garage, I would say it’s in the house, because it’s not outside the house.
When people here are saying that their panel is “in the garage”, I assume you mean that the garage is connected to the house. That is, there is a door that you walk through from the interior of your house to the interior of your garage.
I’ve lived in 3 houses in my life. Two with attached garages and one with a detached garage. None of them had basements.
The two with attached garages had the panels in the garage. The one with the detached garage (my parent’s house where I grew up) had the panel in the kitchen. My parents put a wooden coffee mug display case over the panel to hide it. Whenever a fuse* blew, we had to pull all the coffee mugs off and take the case off the wall.
*Yep, fuses. It was an old house. And there was a drawer full of fuses right there in the kitchen.
Our house was built in the 60s and has the (vertical) fuse panel in the basement, as has every other place I’ve lived in (in Ontario anyway, I was too young to remember such details from our house in Newfoundland). The meter is next to the panel, but is read remotely these days, as is the water meter, also inside. At least one house I lived in as a kid had the meter outside, though.
My in-law’s place, also built in the 60s, had the panel in the garage, but that looked like it had been relocated there when the basement was finished.
I expect that outside location was often impractical because of access problems in winter. Certainly if a meter reader had to get to an outside meter at our present house they would have difficulty once the snow got more than a couple of feet deep, as I don’t shovel any of the back path.
The gas meter is outside, which is a pain as it has to be kept clear of snow in the winter, but likely unsafe for interior installation because of the relief valve. It’s near the front door, so at least it’s accessible in winter.
a gas meter should be clear of obstructions and snow. the gas shutoff to the house is there in case of emergency.
I live in Saskatchewan, Canada and any breaker panel I’ve ever seen, (including my own house which I bought new in 1986) is vertical and is situated in the basement. Practically all houses around here have basements. Temperatures can vary from an extreme of +40c in the summer to -40c in the winter.
My sister, however, has a home in Palm Springs and there the breaker panel is also vertical but is located outside. (no basement) Of course, there’s no winter severity to deal with so the outside location may be the most practical anyway.
I would not want to be outside in a rain storm sticking my fingers in there.
Hey! I was watching (recorded) Holmes Inspection on HGTV today and saw a sideways electrical panel. The lady with a young son, and her small house had horrible drains (plugged), fleas in the basement carpet, and abysmal wiring. The wiring is rank amateur so that explains the sideways panel I assume. First time I remember seeing one.