Yeah, if it weren't for the safety thing, I'd be complaining much louder. One of our codes officers made the observation that most towns finally adopt building codes in response to a tragedy. Despite a libertarian streak on this sort of issue, I can't argue with that.
It's not quite the wild west, we do have standards - minimum lot sizes, setbacks, frontage, coverage limits, etc., but that's not zoning. Zoning means
*uses* are controlled by area: residential, commercial, industrial, and so on.
That happens. As yet, the complainer doesn't get much sympathy, even if he was there first. Non-residential uses do have to go thru a site plan review, which tries to balance the various interests.
Most subdivisions have restrictive covenants.
That'd be great if everyone agreed on what's common-sensical and practical.
No Codes Enforcement Officer could survive in a small town without operating that way. But even the most diplomatic CEO has decisions appealed, occasionally with good reason.
That must have been back in Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death.
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Earlier this winter the smelt camp operators were worried they wouldn't have enough ice on the rivers to set out their shacks and were experimenting with floating them on pontoons.
That's set up as a dual-Main panel, the "flat rate" breaker was for the electric water heater or other loads that they were just going to charge by the month for. Looks like the main buss is still only rated at 100A.
Uses standard GE "Industrial Interchange" sized breakers, if the guts of that panel are in good shape you could leave it there as-is, remove the sub-feed to the garage, and you'd be fine.
If that "I assume this must be the main line" cable heads up to a boxed meter socket in the outside wall, and then up a riser to the roof for the service drop, you can install a new 200A Service on the outside with a 200A riser to the roof. One 100A breaker for the House, one for the Garage, and extra space for other things.
Looks like normal Romex. Hopefully, grounded. Leave it alone, it's fine if it's grounded. The only thing you have to do is move the grounds if you place a new Main Panel outside - you can only land Grounds on the Neutral buss in the Main Panel enclosure, if this is turned into a sub-panel you need to spend $5 on a separate ground buss, and make sure to have a separate ground lead up to the new Main.
Get Rid Of That Garage Panel. Bad Juju.
Federal Pioneer is the Canadian name they put on Federal Pacific breaker panels, and those breakers have a very nasty habit of mechanically failing with no outward signs - and then they get mechanically 'jammed' and won't trip no matter how much juice you try feeding through them. Ever.
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is the tip of the iceberg.
Ask Underwriters Labs about the Type Approval certificate on those breakers, and watch the flop sweat start - In the old days Mfgrs were allowed to conduct their own testing, and we suspect FPE faked it.
Reliance Electric (IIRC) bought FPE, and then found out they also bought a BIG pile of undisclosed liability and tried to unwind the sale... And then Exxon bought Reliance and they got sandbagged too... There's a lot of messy stuff buried under the gravestone of that company that nobody wants to talk about.
Not at all. Back then, it was represented as UL Listed, safety checked, and perfectly fine - we had no reason to think otherwise.
Then again, so was ungrounded Knob & Tube wiring across the attic joists with rubber insulation in it's day - but again, we've learned that while it was a good idea at the time it has been superceded by modern technology.
When you upgrade the service you just change out the panel. $20 to $40 for a new panel, and $3 to $10 each for breakers.
The only thing I'd worry about is the silver fabric style NM Cable on the right side of the Main Panel in the picture - if it isn't grounded. And that style came all three ways, Ungrounded, Reduced Ground (16-gauge ground wire, just enough to trip the breaker, which is okay) and full-size ground.
It's safe to leave ungrounded wire in service, but you have to make sure that someone didn't install 3-prong receptacles that are lying and aren't grounded. No ground, and you have to use the old-style
2-prong receptacles, or a GFCI that's marked "No Equipment Ground".
And don't hook up the computer or any sensitive electronics to a circuit without a ground. Any static or lightning, and you could have some smoking computer gear. Pull a new grounded circuit.
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