How Your Electric Panels Work

The electric panel is a part of the house many home renovators will likely avoid even if they do other electrical repairs inside the home. The electric panel provides a hundred or more amps of power to the house. This power comes into the home by a service drop that connects to the lugs within the service panel and then separates into different circuits throughout the house.

Electric panels are virtually the same thing as a fuse box, and they may be called other names such as 'fuse box', 'circuit breaker panel', 'fuse panel' or even 'the service panel'. Literally, the electric panel is not the same thing the above mentioned names in most cases, however they all preform the same function so they may be called any of these names. The term fuse box still applies directly to older houses built between 1950 and 1965 since they have 60 ampere fuse boxes with 4 separate fuses. Today, homes have modern panels that are slightly more complicated but less dangerous. This is because panels can be highly dangerous if the person is inexperienced or unaware of what they are doing.

While a shock from a receptacle is often times not fatal, a shock from the lugs can cause serious injury and even death. So while it may be dangerous to work with the electric panel that does not mean minor work cannot be done with it at long as the person doing the work is educated in the task they are preforming and does not try to go beyond their skill set. It's important to wear electrician gloves while working on things such as a fuse box to prevent severe shock or injury, as well as thick rubber souled boots.

While these precautions will not prevent injury, they may drastically prevent serious injuries and death. Many homeowners will only have the ability to open the outer door of electric panels to flip a circuit breaker, although it is reasonable for the owner to preform minor work on the inner section of electric panels, such as removing and replacing a circuit breaker. Inside the inner part of the electric panel, you will see lugs that connect to the service drop as well as about twenty to thirty circuit breakers or spaces for circuit breakers and several wires of different colors that are often tangled together, which appears far more complicated than it actually is.

In the case where the homeowner wonders if they can add another circuit breaker, the will need to look at the electric panels and check to see If there are any more spaces by examining the metal knock-out on the panel. Any spot that is not knocked out is likely an acceptable place to put another circuit breaker in.