That 30 year old panel I was working on yesterday just about took me out

I was swapping a main breaker in a 200 amp Square D panel from the early 90s. The bus bar looked okay from the front, but when I went to seat the new breaker, the back clip just crumbled. It was pure corrosion back there. Had to shut the whole house down, call the homeowner, and explain we needed a full panel replacement right then. Cost them an extra two grand and me a whole afternoon of re-running my schedule. Anyone else run into hidden corrosion like that on an old panel that looked fine on the surface?

2 comments

2 Comments

john4305d ago

Man, that's the worst kind of surprise. It feels like everything is built to look okay from the front these days, but the important stuff in the back is just junk waiting to fail. You see it with appliances, furniture, even cars. They make the faceplate shiny but the parts that do the real work are cheap and thin. It's all about that first look for the sale, not the long haul. Your story is a perfect, expensive example of that whole cheap-out culture.

kevin_hernandez835d ago

You nailed it, john430, my last TV was exactly like that.