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SAN FRANCISCO — Host, Sarah Rutan: One of the most important home upgrades you can invest in is bringing your electrical panel up to current standards. Today we’re in San Francisco with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Miro Bokaric of BV Electric to learn more.
Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Miro Bokaric: The case that you have new kitchen. You’re planning to build the brand-new kitchen. You want to have a nice state-of-the-art, 21st century lighting in your house, and oops, your house is actually old 1920s and 30s and has old wiring, existing wiring, old black knob into wiring. The best way for you is to get an electrician, of course. And what we could do is like check, make sure that your electrical panel is up to current standards, or up to code. In case you have an old fuse box, definitely replace it to a breaker box. Also, insurance will be lower. Your electric equipment in your house will be safe, and whole house will be protected, 21st century.
And focus to service, it’s like this one, let’s say you’re upgrading your service to 200-amp service. You require two-inch conduit, number two at wiring which is more details later, your panel has to be a certain height. There is limitations on the ceiling, on your heather, also you have to have a clearance in front of that panel. You cannot put garbage cans or any kind of equipment or make it in a closet. You cannot enclose your panel. It has to be exposed in any case for an emergency so that you can disconnect the breaker, turn off the power, and safely call the fire department or electrician to fix the problem.
The best thing is that in case you have a breaker box like this, focus the idea that some breakers have dots which they are like protection – more protection for you. So these breakers itself have points that arc fault in case of any kind of arc or any kind of fluctuation of power, these breakers trip. That means there’s no more power, no more danger. You’re free to call an electrician back. In case you have multiple breakers like this, focus the idea that these breakers are reason because you have multiple wiring in the system, and they’re sharing neutral which is more detail later. The idea that you have a sub-panel which is a big breaker, two-prong, that’s because you have additional sub-panel in the house which is closer to your location where you’re going to be kitchen remodel. In case you’re planning to do bathroom remodel, and you have no space in your panel, same thing. Focus the idea that you’re going to have to do sub-panel or upgrade your old fuse box. Thank you.
Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.