How are breaker boxes moved?

[54FordPanel]

Hello. This question is not specifically about my garage, but until I get the house done, the garage has to wait, so.....
We want to add an addition to the kitchen. The Mrs is drawing up plans, and she wants to build the addition right where the meter/breaker box is. I argue that it would be cost prohibitive to move the electrical service, and we need to design around the breaker box/meter.
I do alot of electrical work on my houses (spent the entire day Sunday in the attic wiring new ceiling lights) but I don't really know how electrical service can be moved. I don't know how it is done.
If all the existing wiring ends at the existing breaker box, how can that be moved to a new location? There always has to be something left at the existing location (like a dummy box) for a splice, right? If she wants to eliminate the wall where the breaker box is now, and no dummy box or splice could remain there, how would that be done?

 

[car99r]

Here you normally erect an outside locationg for it on a pole. You then have to have utility company come out and move the service then again later once you are ready.

 

[54FordPanel]

Thanks, but what I mean is how do you deal with all the Romax (120v) wiring that ends at the breakers? How can they be extended to another location? If you can't leave a dummy box there because the wall needs to be removed, is there any way to splice the wires and extend them into the new box?

 

[Charles (in GA)]

It would be alot of work and you would be without power for quite a while. You would have to figure out where the panel would go, disconnect everything, labeling the wires, and remount the panel. If you did a good job of selecting a location, the service entrance cable would still reach the panel, if not, you would have to pull out the old service entrance cable back to the outside disconnect or meter and replace it. After that, each and every romex wire would have to be pulled up, or down, out of the wall and run to the new box. If it reached and could be hooked up, fine, if not, you could either install a box with a cover, in the attic (or basement or both) and splice the old wire to the new wire in the box and continue the new wire to the panel, or run a new section of romex back to the first junction or device in the circuit from the new panel. Its a mess either way and as I say, you will be without power while you are doing it.

Charles

 

[Falcon67]

Thats what I would say - you pull all circuits back to the attic, terminate those in new covered boxes, then run from there to the new breaker box. If you cypher on it a while, you may figure out what you can pull back and run to the new service to get you partially up, then have the power moved, then finish up. You can do a lot of prep work - install the new service, meter box, weather head etc, make runs to the tie in boxes, etc. Then when the power is moved you can go start pulling back and re-connecting. I rewired our entire house (was all knob and tube) back in 97 and we were without power for about 30 minutes - I had to pull the meter to tie in the new box. I had an advantage - the old boxes were right next to the new service entrance, so they could all stay powered up as I moved circuit runs to the new service.

 

[54FordPanel]

Ok, thanks everybody. It's kinda like I thought....there's no secret to it, you just have to pull back every wire until they are in a place that isn't getting torn out, and splice every wire and extend it.
Thanks for the answers.

 

[ddawg16]

Actually, it's not all that hard.

I upgraded my house from 60A to 200A.....

My 60A panel was in the middle of the back wall of the house....I put the new panel on the side of the house....

So...I installed new panel with weatherhead....installed all the new wiring I was going to add (5 new ckts to the kitchen, 1 50A/220 for the garage...and a couple of extra ckts along with the existing 6 feeds for the house.

I ran a conduit under the house from the new panel to a box below my old meter.....got every thing in position...then called the inspector....he gave it a blessing...called the electric company....they came out....moved my power to the new meter....for free....

It took me about 2 hours to hook my old wires up to the new feed from the new panel.....

 

[54FordPanel]

But you were able to keep your old panel as a splice, right? I won't be able to do that.

 

[ddawg16]

Old panel is long gone.

The below pic shows the 'hole' where the old meter used to be and the junction box I added.

The meter 'was' at the top of the opening...if you look at the bottom you will see the box...above it is the existing wiring for the house. Under the box I feed a 1 1/2" conduit into it with the new wires from the new panel...right now everything is wire nutted inside the box with some really good tape around all the nuts.

Next year I will be doing a 2 story addition to the house and the meter will have to get moved back to the rear of the house so that the weather head has a clear run to the poll. Hence, everything will change again.

I'm looking at options for a junction box so that I don't have to re-pull all of my wire....but then again, all of it is in the attic....and where it goes down into the wall I have a junction box up on top....so I will most likely just pull new wire from those boxes back to the new meter....I try to have as few as connections as possible.

 

[rsanter]

you could install a sub panel in the exsisting location and then install a new panel with a line over to your new sub panel

bob

 

[54FordPanel]

It's a 2 story house with a open basement. I could easily put in a sub panel in the basement (in fact, I just did that last weekend) but all the wiring from the main floor and the 2nd floor comes into the existing box from both sides and the top.
The problem is that the wall where the panel is now would be gone.
Remodeling is a PITA, and I haven't even started yet.