Home Improvement Today?

I've got the Challenger panel and supposedly it does the same thing. Need to get an electrician out here but I work nights so it's hard to get anything done.

 

That’s not good

 

I’ve never heard of the challenger brand until now, quick google search says I don’t want anything to do with them, their quality is about as good as the Challenger shuttle.

It is not, although I have been considering replacing the panel to get a few more spaces and add a surge protector.

 

cant be much worse than my old Zinsco panel

 

Take what I say with a "grain of salt" but from what I understand some of the Challenger brand panel boxes have major problems and have been recalled. If your house went through an inspection before you bought it; the inspector probably checked out the panel box and you are okay. Do yourself a favor and just google your panel box model and find out if it is one of the recalled models.

4BYTOY

 

enough said

 

i still dont know how the place never burned down before we replaced that panel. Its insane how they had pretty much the whole house on one circuit.

 

Glad to "hear" that you had the panel replaced.

4BYTOY

 

Do you have enough room to abandon that spot and put a new breaker somewhere else?

I wouldn’t try to clean and reuse that spot. You can also get breakers that do 2 circuits if you don’t have a free spot.

 

I just got home to clean it, got it cleaned and it’s missing about 1/8” of material so definitely a no go on re-using it, I also noticed another 20 amp breaker is showing signs of arcing also.

I think the best course of action will be to replace the whole box as well as the breakers inside.

 

This or you’ll worry about it forever lol

 

My inspector said it's a time bomb and it's amazing it's last this long, but used FLIR or some other thermal imaging and said it looked okay under load for now.

 

Here's my panel for what its worth. My dad's an electrical Engineer so I had planned on buying a panel and doing it ourselves. but I want to have an electrician come out and take a look and get a quote. If it's not a ton more than DIY and I can get everything upgraded plus a 220v outlet installed in the garage then it'd be worth it to not mess with it.

 

Electrician neighbor just looked at it, he moved some breakers around and we’re good to go temporarily. The single 20 I thought had also arced was fine, it was just soot/material from the other breaker arcing directly opposite.

His recommendation is to R&R the current panel, go with a bigger panel with a surge protector and all new breakers and if we want to install a disconnect or a generator hookup between the meter and panel.
Since we live in a hurricane prone area I think the generator hookup is a good idea.
I figure about $250 in materials and he will install for a couple hundred.

 

Good Decision

 

Isn't that a None Shall Pass switch?

 

Brave man. And I see you have liquid courage to aid you.

 

Sounds like you have a good plan - changing out the panel box and upgrading. I wouldn't recommend changing out a panel box DIY style with no prior panel box experience. But that's me not knowing your situation or experience and looking from afar. I am going to most assuredly say that you will need a permit and to have your work inspected.

Keeps us updated as you move through the project.

4BYTOY

 

For my generator I used an interlock plate (

$50 GenInterlock SD-200A Square D Electrical Panels Interlock Kit for Safe Outdoor Portable Power Use During Outage, 150 and 200 Amp

https://www.amazon.com/SD-200A-Generator-Interlock-Homeline-outdoor/dp/B014EDF6MA?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2 ). The generator back feeds the panel through a 240v breaker, but the interlock plate keeps you from being able to turn that breaker on while the main is on. So you turn off the main, slide the interlock plate, then turn on the generator breaker and fire up the generator.
This way you can run each circuit in the house (depending on the amount of load) instead of a generator sub panel with like 6 circuits.
I also converted my portable generator to run on natural gas, and I ran a gas line and 240v line out to my shed so my generator is always ready to use.
https://www.motorsnorkel.com/ - natural gas conversion kit

 

Lol. I’ve been on parental leave going on 3 weeks now. I’m definitely killing a ton more beer than I normally do.