Thread: Do I have 50amp or 100amp service

I had a recent home inspection of a seasonal home cottage. The panel was a 100amp panel and I assumed it was 100amp service. That is where my electrical experience runs out. The inspector has told me that I in fact have 50amp service. The way it was explained to me is that using a snake camera the wires coming in were 50amp X 2. He explained "on main panel it says 100 amp but where the service enters the house there are 2-50 amp fuses"

Maybe I am going against the inspector code but I just would like another opinion. If he is on here I apologize. That would be embarrassing but funny.

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The "snake camera" comment is incredilous.

Where is the picture of the panel? Take one (it lasts longer, and its worth 1,000 words or more). Post the picture.

Do you know the difference between a circuit breaker and a fuse?

If you have any concerns regarding, contact your electrical safety authority, pay the fee and have them certify history and inspect. If the property is not yours, then have your attorney make the request of the seller to do same.

Originally Posted by H.G. Watson, Sr.

The "snake camera" comment is incredilous.

Where is the picture of the panel? Take one (it lasts longer, and its worth 1,000 words or more). Post the picture.

Do you know the difference between a circuit breaker and a fuse?

If you have any concerns regarding, contact your electrical safety authority, pay the fee and have them certify history and inspect. If the property is not yours, then have your attorney make the request of the seller to do same.

Watson,

You are something else. Here you are admonishing another Canadian!

Who do you think you are?

You know nothing about the codes in Canada and are not qualified to comment!

Brenda,

If the fuses are stamped 50 amp, then its 50 amp service.

You should also call your inspector and have him clarify your concerns.

Brendan

Which panel looks like yours, the left one or right one?

I believe there may be a breaker panel with a 100 amp 'main' disconnect. The inspector has found the real main disconnect closer to the road. If the breaker panel is actually what we call in Canada a subpanel, then the size of the big breaker in the panel doesn't count. It is the size of those fuses. The inspector is most likely correct.

Maybe the true main disconnect is in a locked pumphouse, and there is nothing ridiculous about him using a snake camera. In Canada, we keep our disconnects protected from the weather inside a building.
He may not have been able to open the fuse box door completely, and if the fuse labels are turned away, you use a camera or a mirror to read them.

Do you know the difference between a circuit breaker and a fuse?
Yes

Raymond it is a breaker panel. The one on the left. Tried to attached picture so hopefully it works.

Made a call to the an electrician already but was trying to stop thinking about it for the weekend with a bit of piece of mind.

Thanks for all the fast replies.

Where are the fuses in a breaker panel? I'm confused! And where is the photo of the snake??????

I'm pretty much a idiot but I would never stick my metal bore-scope (snake) into a live panel!

Originally Posted by Brendan Stevenson

The way it was explained to me is that using a snake camera ...

I may be wrong, but Brendan did not say that *he* used the snake, the way I read it the inspector used the snake "it was explained to me" ...

Originally Posted by H.G. Watson, Sr.

The "snake camera" comment is incredilous.

At this point, I thought that Watson was going in the right direction on the camera snake, but then he said ...

Where is the picture of the panel? Take one (it lasts longer, and its worth 1,000 words or more). Post the picture.

... Watson is telling him to stick the camera snake *back into the panel*!

Originally Posted by James Duffin

I'm pretty much a idiot but I would never stick my metal bore-scope (snake) into a live panel!

I've got to agree with James on that, not even my plastic coated one (which may make it kind of insulated).

Originally Posted by Brendan Stevenson

I had a recent home inspection of a seasonal home cottage. The panel was a 100amp panel and I assumed it was 100amp service. That is where my electrical experience runs out. The inspector has told me that I in fact have 50amp service. The way it was explained to me is that using a snake camera the wires coming in were 50amp X 2. He explained "on main panel it says 100 amp but where the service enters the house there are 2-50 amp fuses"

Maybe I am going against the inspector code but I just would like another opinion. If he is on here I apologize. That would be embarrassing but funny.

The snake camera comment is refering to the inspector using same to visualize THE WIRES COMING IN.

Where are the "wires coming in" (this would be INTO the box containing fuse holders and able to be viewed) Using a "Snake Camera" or anything in proximity to ENERGIZED unfused, unswitched side is incredible thus the comment is incredulous.

THE only panel mentioned in the OP was the 100-amp panel - asked for THE picture of THE ONLY PANEL the OP has made reference to.

The OP has not identified a provincial or territorial location, let alone a general area of same.

And before you self-destruct Raymond, I was consulting and working professionally in your Country before independance, and long before you were even a glint in anyone's eye and continued long after you ever had so much as a thought about "home inspection".

Funny, the anti-quoter has quoted, then multiple posts thereafter.

Didn't bother actually reading the OP Jerry before quoting what I said?
There are multiple subjects and sentances in that rich original post. There was no SNAKE referenced relative to THE PANEL the OP refers to, and to which I requested THE PHOTO of. THE SNAKE was referenced to have been used to identify THE "wires" as "2x 50 amp" @ a location OUTSIDE "The Main Panel", infact before it, and where "the wires" entered the house, and were fused BEFORE "the Panel".

The Original Poster then followed up with the post stating the panel looked like a Main Breaker Panel, and posted this photo from the inspection report:


The fuses should be accessible. One wouldn't need a "snake camera" to visualize either the fuses, or "the wires" in the fuse "box".

The main disconnect 'appears' to be the fuse box on the left of the breaker panel. If those 50 amp fuses are in that box, your inspector is correct - that is a 50 amp, 240 volt service.

The 100 amp breaker is in the circuit as a switch only. If the load exceeds 50 amps, one or both of the fuses will blow.

I'm not advocating sticking any tool into an electrical box. But when the door will only open part way, you snap a picture somehow. The HI did good.

Watson lied and said,

And before you self-destruct Raymond, I was consulting and working professionally in your Country before independance, and long before you were even a glint in anyone's eye and continued long after you ever had so much as a thought about "home inspection".

Bull, that proves nothing, much like everything else you post! Hypocrite.
And don't call yourself professional, you are far from it!

And if you truly worked in Canada you would know Canadians spell Independence with an 'e', and not an 'a'. And if you were a Canadian, you would also know that its irrelevant which province the poster resides as the electrical code across Canada is based on the Canadian Electrical Code!

You give orders to an innocent poster and didn't even to say please in response to the OP. Got talk to your wife in the manner you continually display here.

Canadian history!

History of Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by H.G. Watson, Sr.

And before you self-destruct Raymond, I was consulting and working professionally in your Country before independance,

Originally Posted by Raymond Wand

Canadian history!

History of Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From Raymond's link (guess I did not make him my first ignore list person after all ):
"This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the British Empire, which became official with the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and completed in the Canada Act of 1982, ... "

Let's see, separation was completed in 1931, and Watson was "consulting and working professionally in your Country before independance", so if we use a rough calculation that Watson was probably at least 20 years old then, that would mean he was born in or before 1911 ... OH MY GAWD ... THAT MAKES WATSON OVER 100 YEARS OLD ...

Raymond, by the way, down here in The States, we don't spell independence the way Watson did either ... but at over 100 years old, we can give Watson that break - hope we all spell as well as he does at that old of an age.

I suspect Canada gained independence from HG Watson some time in the early 1980's.

and I'm still trying to figure out the ABS thingy!

My Father was born in Sakatchewan in 1918, and he was pretty independent, but couldn't spell very well either. I don't think he ever owned a snake camera, by the way.

Originally Posted by Jack Feldmann

My Father was born in Sakatchewan in 1918, and he was pretty independent, but couldn't spell very well either. I don't think he ever owned a snake camera, by the way.

I have a lot of respect for anyone that lived out on the prairies during the dirty thirties. Hey, he probably learned to drive in a Bennett Buggy, what y'all called a Hoover wagon. I'll bet he was good with a bullwhip.