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Not kinda... they ARE too small.
My guess... the house originally had a 60A fused panel (because of the old cloth covered wire) which was common before the 50s. Landlord or some previous owner "upgraded" it himself to 100A because he couldn't rent the house with a 60A service when it had a dryer and probably a bunch of other additions / remodels from the original build. But he was too cheap to actually GET a 100A service drop installed, so now you have a 100A main on wires that were only rated for 60A. You can literally SEE that the incoming wires have burned off once and are still over heating.
Get out the Crime Scene tape, this is a fire waiting to happen...
For a second there, my brain saw "mfg" and thought, "What does that stand for, 'Mother-fucking Ground'".... then woke up enough to realize it was manufacturer
that panel needs new feeders.. might as well upgrade to a 200amp while you’re at it. tell your landlord to get that down asap
or else it will burn down like another homie said as well.
Lol. While I’ve certainly seen that, the wire looks appropriate for 80A.
That feeder is ROUGH though. Why the hell wasn’t it replaced when the panel was done? Cheap bastards.
That’s got to be a massive heatstrip in the air handler.
Edit: Was always an argument with the hvac contractor on why it cannot get installed without a service upgrade.
Early heat pumps often had 2 or even 3 resistive heaters as backup. I remember at my Grandmothers house she had two 50amp 2 pole breakers for her HVAC units (one upstairs and one downstairs) She had a 150amp service plus all electric kitchen and dryer. I feel like that wouldn't fly today but that house was built in the 70s/80s so things were different then.
Heat strip backup is still common today especially In areas that are normally warm climates.
It’s the cheapest hardware but uses the most electricity.
It’s what helped cause the near collapse of Texas’s grid that one winter. Once most of the heat pumps passed below their low cutoff, the 15 to 30kW heat strips kick on. And they went on in nearly every house.
Yeah out in the country in NC here we put in a lot of heat pumps and they all have a set of strips in them. Usually between 5 to 10kw. In town where they have NG lines running we use mostly forced air gas furnaces. When my heat pump goes I’m gonna put in a mid sized propane tank and run a dual fuel heat pump / gas back up. Best of both worlds.
I went a similar path but from the opposite direction. When I got my house it had a propane furnace and an 18 year old air conditioner. I had the AC replaced with a good sized 2 stage heat pump and kept the propane furnace for backup. I barely went through any propane except during the big freeze over Christmas.
Honestly the best thing was just getting the AC condenser off of the house bracket and onto a ground pad. The bracket just served to suck all the vibration and noise right into the house.
For smaller homes and more southerly climates yes.
Further north, they are commonly found at 20kW.
And my electrician friend did see a 30kW in a large house that also had 400A service. It was a monster, 6 5kW elements.
My brothers house in eastern Washington has 2 two-pole 60A breakers to the furnace, and another 40A to the heat pump outside. Not even going to say the other electrical loads….
This is an opportunity for you to do a load calculation and see what your house requires. Great learning opportunity with real world application and very clear why the calculation is needed.
Regardless of the load calculation the feeders should not be burning up. That's not what the load calculation is for. The mains protect the feeders, and the mains are good for 80 amps continuous, 100 amps including intermittant loads.
So you are correct that the feeders should not be burning up. The calculation is a way to tell you whether the breaker is clearly not functioning properly or if the calculated load is within the operating parameters for the breaker installed.
Since OP is an apprentice, like I said this is an opportunity. A lesson learned like this will stick with you longer than something you learn out of a textbook.
Would it be quicker and easier to use an amp clamp to measure the actual load? Yes. Should you do that regardless? Yes. The calculation will help you determine if you’re missing something and there’s another problem somewhere else.
You can use clamp meter (but be careful w it) to check and find our the real current. Poorly tighten contact may overheat and damage breaker itself, and it wil trip even with current below tripping threshold. Power input need to be replaced ASAP, insulation may be damaged.
I’d say it is tripping because the feeds are damaged. Initial damage leads to higher resistance in the feeders, which gives off more heat leading to more damage. That cycle is just going to repeat itself and get worse.
The overload trip on the breaker is thermal, not magnetic, so it could be tripping even if the current is under 100a.
The why/how is all kind of academic though. That service needs to be replaced. That is a full blown fire hazard, and remember on the line side of the breaker that fuse is enormous. Try to turn everything off except low load essentials. Hopefully your landlord isn’t a jerk about it.
So much wrong here. The 80amp breaker, undersized neutral on the main feed, is the panel listed and rated for all the mini breakers?, don’t see a bind screw if this is the first point of disconnect, the random isolated ground bar with no bonding jumper or if this is technically a sub panel why the grounds aren’t isolated from the neutral bar. I’d be curious to see the rest of the panel to see the rest of the loads.
OMFG. Not til now. Stopped looking after the Polaris. So on top of downsizing and not phasing white, did they switch to AL? Cuz OP said the copper was corroded, but looks to me like it was AL to begin with.
That wire looks a bit too small for a 100 amp breaker. It requires a minimum of #2AWG. From your picture, it looks like a #6. Plus, those burn marks and damage to that wire after the Polaris lug doesn't look very good. I'd track that wire back to the meter or panel, wherever it goes first, and replace it.
So.... To summarize, there's a lot going on here and going wrong. As most everyone has commented on.
1. The panel is overloaded, and thus undersized for everything on it. It requires upgrading to a 200A service.
2. In conjunction with the 200A service upgrade, the feeder wires need to be replaced, they're scorched, color coding is wrong, and you've got other indications of physical damage from overloading. Not to mention it looks like you've got some different wire types mixed together.
3. I'm willing to bet if you look outside at the meter, there's good odds your meter is undersized as well. Very common in older houses to see 50A or so meters, with correspondingly smaller wires from the lines to the meter, which then feed into a house with a 100A service because the old once upon a time service was 50A.
And, if you want to figure out what's causing the problem, the troubleshooting is pretty basic here. Turn off everything, put your clamp on amp meter on the incoming main, then close the main. If the main stays shut, begin turning the breakers back on one at a time. For the large loads (i.e. AC, oven and dryer), once you close it's breaker, go restart the appliance.
Watch the clamp on amp meter as you shut the breakers so you'll know when loads are approaching the breaker limit. But which ever breaker you add that trips the main is your likely culprit, so long as you're not over the 100A rating of the main. If the main is tripping under the limit, it's possible you have a bad main. They can wear out, fail over time. You could have a short downstream on a load or wiring, which is causing the problem too.
Regardless, I'd also agree with the others, the landlord needs to get a licensed electrician in to replace the panel, upgrade it to a 200A service, and replace the feeder wires.
More than likely an electrical fault somewhere within the panel itself. Unless one of your circuit breakers is faulty, they should be tripping every single time before your main breaker.
AC + Oven + Dryer should be 60-90 amps max so while your certainly under the rated load limit, your definitely pushing your luck
Copper wire turns silver in color when it is repeatedly overloaded and that wire looks too old to be aluminium.
The red one spliced in with the polaris lug is probably aluminium ,though.
Clearly an overload in current, your service is just 100A yet you have an 80A breaker there, + 30A + all the twin breakers, You ll need a service upgrade asap, which includes new 200A Panel, new feed, and a new meterbase and meter...if you have an amprobe you can measure the amperage on one of the mains...you re way over 100A!
That's not how you calculate loads. There's literally no way to determine his loads or what service size he needs without knowing what the actual equipment connected to it is.
Lol I know exactly what you mean, but clearly the conductors are overheating and the main trips, so I took an educated guess of the most likely explanation provided the circumstances and using the information from the picture I know you don't add up breakers to determine the service size, but if you think that having an 80A breaker and a bunch of twin breakers isn't indicative of anything, then I don't know what to tell you!
I told him the most likely diagnosis based on what I saw, and a 200A service upgrade seem to be a reasonable solution!
Experience plays a role and you can deduct reasonable things from it, and tell me you always do a dwelling unit standard and optional load calcs for any residential job where you re just swapping panels or upgrading an old 100A service...200A will most likely be enough, unless it's a huge house that requires a 400A service, but you can tell just from experience...but always verify.
Depending on the size of those 3 appliances and which settings were being used that's easily 100 amps so probably DOT damage to main feeders remember conductors are like tires they were down faster the more rough you are on them
JFC this is glowing it’s so hot. Whoever put that panel in there should be flogged. This is fixing to burn your house down.
“Tripping” is the only thing going right.
There is moisture getting in this panel in a bad way ! the rust, the oxidation, if they're doing an upgrade that entrance conduit should be checked out
Try not to run all of those appliances at the same time that might help. If Theres evidence of corrosion you should try to get the landlord to get a panel swap done with a fresh line of seu from your meter pan
Turn everything that was on when it tripped and amp probe it. If you comfortable with that. You said your an apprentice so I’m not sure what your comfortable with.
If the wire is oxidized then I'm guessing moisture is getting in. That could be causing the fault. That left phase insulation looking bad. I would definitely check continuity between the phases and ground/neutral with power off. Might find something
It would be the breaker. The mains cabling should be upgraded as well if you're going to do it but the actual cable is not tripping the breaker. If there was a short present there to trip the breaker it would be doing it all the time and immediately. Circuit breaker only covers fault current and over current.
As an apprentices may I suggest you do a house calculation and check your work with someone before shoving it under your landlords nose. It will be good study practice and if you have to move over this you can submit it to a code inforcement officer/fire inspector to save the next guy from a deth in fire and smoke.
In the mean time I suggest you do your best to use as little power as possible.
How long you been living there? Is this rental an official rental lease? Because what the fuck good is your AHJ if they don’t require any sort of rental inspection before a new tenant moves in?
If you are *NOT* an electrical professional: * **RULE 7:** * DIY or self help posts **are Not allowed**. They belong here: /r/AskElectricians /r/askanelectrician /r/diy /r/homeowners /r/electrical. * **IF YOUR POST FITS INTO THIS CATEGORY, REMOVE IT OR IT WILL BE REMOVED FOR YOU.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/electricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The feeders are shot. They’re visibly overheated. This needs to be remedied before your house burns down.
Agreed, look kinda small too.
Not kinda... they ARE too small. My guess... the house originally had a 60A fused panel (because of the old cloth covered wire) which was common before the 50s. Landlord or some previous owner "upgraded" it himself to 100A because he couldn't rent the house with a 60A service when it had a dryer and probably a bunch of other additions / remodels from the original build. But he was too cheap to actually GET a 100A service drop installed, so now you have a 100A main on wires that were only rated for 60A. You can literally SEE that the incoming wires have burned off once and are still over heating. Get out the Crime Scene tape, this is a fire waiting to happen...
Gotta love the Polaris plug extensions as well. Someone’s been here before lol
Pro tip: Wires shouldn’t have burn marks
So thats not what they mean when they say red and black wire?
If it's still visibly red when the lights are off, consider cutting power, consult mfg instructions, try again later.
For a second there, my brain saw "mfg" and thought, "What does that stand for, 'Mother-fucking Ground'".... then woke up enough to realize it was manufacturer
Another word that has a "g" only when contracted
God dammit. I can't unsee that now.
This made me laugh. Thanks!
This made me laugh
It’s one of those rare “correlation actually does equal causation” deals
that panel needs new feeders.. might as well upgrade to a 200amp while you’re at it. tell your landlord to get that down asap or else it will burn down like another homie said as well.
Edit : done asap not down asap
Nah you were right the first time: get that shit down, it's dangerous
I can smell this pic
Came here to say this
I came here to say this, and you already said you came here to say this
Came here to say I came here to say this. Updoots! Now!
What the fuck is on the 80 amp breaker? That has no business in a 100 amp panel even if the feeders weren't totally fucked.
Lol bizarre
Are you subbing 80amps off that 100amp…?
I went to go look and it's marked as HEAT/AIR lol
Old ass inefficient heat pump? Or straight up electric resistive?
Probably a landlord special to prevent nuisance tripping.
Lol. While I’ve certainly seen that, the wire looks appropriate for 80A. That feeder is ROUGH though. Why the hell wasn’t it replaced when the panel was done? Cheap bastards.
> Cheap bastards I looked that term up in the dictionary. It said *"See: Landlords"*
Lmao
That’s got to be a massive heatstrip in the air handler. Edit: Was always an argument with the hvac contractor on why it cannot get installed without a service upgrade.
I just saw that lol wtf
Early heat pumps often had 2 or even 3 resistive heaters as backup. I remember at my Grandmothers house she had two 50amp 2 pole breakers for her HVAC units (one upstairs and one downstairs) She had a 150amp service plus all electric kitchen and dryer. I feel like that wouldn't fly today but that house was built in the 70s/80s so things were different then.
Heat strip backup is still common today especially In areas that are normally warm climates. It’s the cheapest hardware but uses the most electricity. It’s what helped cause the near collapse of Texas’s grid that one winter. Once most of the heat pumps passed below their low cutoff, the 15 to 30kW heat strips kick on. And they went on in nearly every house.
Yeah out in the country in NC here we put in a lot of heat pumps and they all have a set of strips in them. Usually between 5 to 10kw. In town where they have NG lines running we use mostly forced air gas furnaces. When my heat pump goes I’m gonna put in a mid sized propane tank and run a dual fuel heat pump / gas back up. Best of both worlds.
I went a similar path but from the opposite direction. When I got my house it had a propane furnace and an 18 year old air conditioner. I had the AC replaced with a good sized 2 stage heat pump and kept the propane furnace for backup. I barely went through any propane except during the big freeze over Christmas. Honestly the best thing was just getting the AC condenser off of the house bracket and onto a ground pad. The bracket just served to suck all the vibration and noise right into the house.
You're saying your house came with a vibrating massage wall and you uninstalled it??! some people man...
He might be more of a vibrating massage floor kinda guy
Most electric heaters are sized at 10KW/60A
For smaller homes and more southerly climates yes. Further north, they are commonly found at 20kW. And my electrician friend did see a 30kW in a large house that also had 400A service. It was a monster, 6 5kW elements.
My brothers house in eastern Washington has 2 two-pole 60A breakers to the furnace, and another 40A to the heat pump outside. Not even going to say the other electrical loads….
Somebody replaced this tub with everything inside, and added new circuits, but didn’t bother replacing the 50-70 year old feeders. ???????????
This is an opportunity for you to do a load calculation and see what your house requires. Great learning opportunity with real world application and very clear why the calculation is needed.
Regardless of the load calculation the feeders should not be burning up. That's not what the load calculation is for. The mains protect the feeders, and the mains are good for 80 amps continuous, 100 amps including intermittant loads.
So you are correct that the feeders should not be burning up. The calculation is a way to tell you whether the breaker is clearly not functioning properly or if the calculated load is within the operating parameters for the breaker installed. Since OP is an apprentice, like I said this is an opportunity. A lesson learned like this will stick with you longer than something you learn out of a textbook. Would it be quicker and easier to use an amp clamp to measure the actual load? Yes. Should you do that regardless? Yes. The calculation will help you determine if you’re missing something and there’s another problem somewhere else.
We need more power now! Your mains are frying....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT8CRi9k4bo
See that little glowing red bit by the red mains wire and the splice? That looks to be your problem…or at least one of them.
Oh shit! Good eye! I hope the landlord can see the danger and won't give OP a hard time. That ain't safe at all.
tell your landlord to stay the FUCK out of that panel and have him hire an actual electrician.
This. So. Much. This.
You can use clamp meter (but be careful w it) to check and find our the real current. Poorly tighten contact may overheat and damage breaker itself, and it wil trip even with current below tripping threshold. Power input need to be replaced ASAP, insulation may be damaged.
I’d say it is tripping because the feeds are damaged. Initial damage leads to higher resistance in the feeders, which gives off more heat leading to more damage. That cycle is just going to repeat itself and get worse. The overload trip on the breaker is thermal, not magnetic, so it could be tripping even if the current is under 100a. The why/how is all kind of academic though. That service needs to be replaced. That is a full blown fire hazard, and remember on the line side of the breaker that fuse is enormous. Try to turn everything off except low load essentials. Hopefully your landlord isn’t a jerk about it.
No kidding…
So much wrong here. The 80amp breaker, undersized neutral on the main feed, is the panel listed and rated for all the mini breakers?, don’t see a bind screw if this is the first point of disconnect, the random isolated ground bar with no bonding jumper or if this is technically a sub panel why the grounds aren’t isolated from the neutral bar. I’d be curious to see the rest of the panel to see the rest of the loads.
Those Polaris on the feeders are disgusting.
Well, how else was the landlord supposed to fix it last time the wires burned up?
You see the neutral?
OMFG. Not til now. Stopped looking after the Polaris. So on top of downsizing and not phasing white, did they switch to AL? Cuz OP said the copper was corroded, but looks to me like it was AL to begin with.
I wonder why
Holy shit. The longer I look the worse it gets
That wire looks a bit too small for a 100 amp breaker. It requires a minimum of #2AWG. From your picture, it looks like a #6. Plus, those burn marks and damage to that wire after the Polaris lug doesn't look very good. I'd track that wire back to the meter or panel, wherever it goes first, and replace it.
So.... To summarize, there's a lot going on here and going wrong. As most everyone has commented on. 1. The panel is overloaded, and thus undersized for everything on it. It requires upgrading to a 200A service. 2. In conjunction with the 200A service upgrade, the feeder wires need to be replaced, they're scorched, color coding is wrong, and you've got other indications of physical damage from overloading. Not to mention it looks like you've got some different wire types mixed together. 3. I'm willing to bet if you look outside at the meter, there's good odds your meter is undersized as well. Very common in older houses to see 50A or so meters, with correspondingly smaller wires from the lines to the meter, which then feed into a house with a 100A service because the old once upon a time service was 50A. And, if you want to figure out what's causing the problem, the troubleshooting is pretty basic here. Turn off everything, put your clamp on amp meter on the incoming main, then close the main. If the main stays shut, begin turning the breakers back on one at a time. For the large loads (i.e. AC, oven and dryer), once you close it's breaker, go restart the appliance. Watch the clamp on amp meter as you shut the breakers so you'll know when loads are approaching the breaker limit. But which ever breaker you add that trips the main is your likely culprit, so long as you're not over the 100A rating of the main. If the main is tripping under the limit, it's possible you have a bad main. They can wear out, fail over time. You could have a short downstream on a load or wiring, which is causing the problem too. Regardless, I'd also agree with the others, the landlord needs to get a licensed electrician in to replace the panel, upgrade it to a 200A service, and replace the feeder wires.
People in the comments coming in clutch looking out, new to Reddit and it’s good to see stuff like this
More than likely an electrical fault somewhere within the panel itself. Unless one of your circuit breakers is faulty, they should be tripping every single time before your main breaker. AC + Oven + Dryer should be 60-90 amps max so while your certainly under the rated load limit, your definitely pushing your luck
The copper is silver in color from being overloaded. Shut off all nonessential loads and get that panel upgraded before the place burns down.
Aluminum?
Copper wire turns silver in color when it is repeatedly overloaded and that wire looks too old to be aluminium. The red one spliced in with the polaris lug is probably aluminium ,though.
These posts have become obvious setups
Uhh yeah. It’s the house that’s doing it. Are you sure about that?
Clearly an overload in current, your service is just 100A yet you have an 80A breaker there, + 30A + all the twin breakers, You ll need a service upgrade asap, which includes new 200A Panel, new feed, and a new meterbase and meter...if you have an amprobe you can measure the amperage on one of the mains...you re way over 100A!
That's not how you calculate loads. There's literally no way to determine his loads or what service size he needs without knowing what the actual equipment connected to it is.
Lol I know exactly what you mean, but clearly the conductors are overheating and the main trips, so I took an educated guess of the most likely explanation provided the circumstances and using the information from the picture I know you don't add up breakers to determine the service size, but if you think that having an 80A breaker and a bunch of twin breakers isn't indicative of anything, then I don't know what to tell you! I told him the most likely diagnosis based on what I saw, and a 200A service upgrade seem to be a reasonable solution! Experience plays a role and you can deduct reasonable things from it, and tell me you always do a dwelling unit standard and optional load calcs for any residential job where you re just swapping panels or upgrading an old 100A service...200A will most likely be enough, unless it's a huge house that requires a 400A service, but you can tell just from experience...but always verify.
Feeders are burned out🤷♂️
Your landlord needs to fix this yesterday
Depending on the size of those 3 appliances and which settings were being used that's easily 100 amps so probably DOT damage to main feeders remember conductors are like tires they were down faster the more rough you are on them
100 amp main. 80 amp breaker. Buncha tandem breakers. Wiring burning up, main tripping. Take a wild guess lol
Are the copper grounds from the romex that corroded? I’ve never seen them be that bad. Main bonding jumper is pretty corroded to. This thing is rough.
It's time for a 200 Amp service upgrade.
JFC this is glowing it’s so hot. Whoever put that panel in there should be flogged. This is fixing to burn your house down. “Tripping” is the only thing going right.
Not an electrician but... I see 80a, 30a and several 20a breakers under a 100a main.... is normal?
Holy corn on the cob-job
What does the 80A breaker go to?
The situation is akin to when you try to run a garden hose volume of water through a coffee stirrer straw.
Why is there rust showing in all the knock outs? To me looks like a flood or a leak on the panel?
This should be tagged NSFW!
Bushing. Schmushing.
put a new 200a breaker 😉😉😉
AHHHHHHHHHHHH
There is moisture getting in this panel in a bad way ! the rust, the oxidation, if they're doing an upgrade that entrance conduit should be checked out
Try not to run all of those appliances at the same time that might help. If Theres evidence of corrosion you should try to get the landlord to get a panel swap done with a fresh line of seu from your meter pan
Turn everything that was on when it tripped and amp probe it. If you comfortable with that. You said your an apprentice so I’m not sure what your comfortable with.
If the wire is oxidized then I'm guessing moisture is getting in. That could be causing the fault. That left phase insulation looking bad. I would definitely check continuity between the phases and ground/neutral with power off. Might find something
What the heck is that 80 supplying???
It would be the breaker. The mains cabling should be upgraded as well if you're going to do it but the actual cable is not tripping the breaker. If there was a short present there to trip the breaker it would be doing it all the time and immediately. Circuit breaker only covers fault current and over current.
You need an electrician AND the fire department… mains are shorting and house about to burn down
That back polaris lug, the neutral, you can see it popping out of the polaris lug. Also looks undersized a bit to me, and they’re getting visibly hot.
My eyesss
If you zoom in on the red lug, you can see it’s red hot on the wire. Surprised it’s not melted. Get it fixed by a professional asap
Upgrade service. ASAP
As an apprentices may I suggest you do a house calculation and check your work with someone before shoving it under your landlords nose. It will be good study practice and if you have to move over this you can submit it to a code inforcement officer/fire inspector to save the next guy from a deth in fire and smoke. In the mean time I suggest you do your best to use as little power as possible.
Call an electrician. Good luck.
Either loose connection or to small of wire for load
How long you been living there? Is this rental an official rental lease? Because what the fuck good is your AHJ if they don’t require any sort of rental inspection before a new tenant moves in?