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How do I turn off power to the whole house? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by akilou@sh.itjust.works to c/electricians@lemmy.world

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I need to replace a faulty breaker. Here's a picture of my main breaker box. There's no master switch that I can see that shuts off power to all of the breakers.

Following the line up and out of the box, it runs along the basement ceiling and out through a hole in the foundation.

Let me know if you need to see something else.

Edit. Resolved! I found a master switch on the outside of the house in a panel adjacent to the meter. Weird that anyone can just walk up to my house and turn all of the power off.

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[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is really strange that there is no master switch. Are you sure this isn't a sub-panel which is wired into another breaker box somewhere else in the building? I'd go hunting, following the main wire.

There's less than half of the number of breakers on here that I'd expect in a house.

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My house is like that too. No master shutoff anywhere, so I'd have to call the power delivery company out to shut it off at the meter.

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That would never pass inspection here... Might depend on where you live I guess

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Lots of houses haven't had an inspection since they were built, and code was almost always more relaxed.

My parents built their house in the 70s, like my dad was a mason and he did all the brick, and any contractors for the rest was friends and family. And in a small county they all knew the inspector too.

I'm sure lots of stuff was overlooked because it was "good enough" and when it was sold 5ish years ago it was "as is" because a ceiling fan on a dimmer wouldn't have passed inspection.

Like it wasn't a lemon, everything was good.

But the buyers couldn't have known for sure because they waived inspection.

Tldr:

Lots of homes in America won't/can't pass inspection, and with the market someone is always willing to roll the dice to buy anyways.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

even if it wat built in 2015 it probably would fail inspection for something today even though that sonething still works like new.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I mean, I helped wire a house at 14 just because my dad thought it would be good to learn, but I'm not a real electrician.

So others probably know more, but to my knowledge that stuff moves slow so not a lot would have changed since 2015...

That being said, new homes are built to meet bare minimum standards and corners are cut everywhere they can be. So it might fail inspection because things are breaking, but not for things that work but have become against code.