I need to replace a faulty breaker. Here’s a picture of my main breaker box. There’s no master switch that I can see that shuts off power to all of the breakers.

Following the line up and out of the box, it runs along the basement ceiling and out through a hole in the foundation.

Let me know if you need to see something else.

Edit. Resolved! I found a master switch on the outside of the house in a panel adjacent to the meter. Weird that anyone can just walk up to my house and turn all of the power off.

  • Troy@lemmy.caEnglish
    85·
    3 days ago

    This is really strange that there is no master switch. Are you sure this isn’t a sub-panel which is wired into another breaker box somewhere else in the building? I’d go hunting, following the main wire.

    There’s less than half of the number of breakers on here that I’d expect in a house.

    • earphone843English
      19·
      3 days ago

      My house is like that too. No master shutoff anywhere, so I’d have to call the power delivery company out to shut it off at the meter.

      • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        Have you looked at the meter box? Around here there will be a cover you can flip up under the meter head and turn off the breaker you find under it.

        • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          I recently found out this is code now where I live: you must have a master breaker outside with the meter. While I can understand the benefits from a safety and service point of view, this seems mostly like an invitation for “pranks”.

          My electrician had to go through contortions to explain how one approach let him just make the change I needed whereas the other may have seemed cleaner but would require him to redo the service entrance to add an outside main breaker

      • Troy@lemmy.caEnglish
        22·
        3 days ago

        That would never pass inspection here… Might depend on where you live I guess

        • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
          15·
          2 days ago

          I toured a house that still had TL fuses and cloth-wrapped electrical…No inspection needed in 2025 if it passed in 1940 and was never updated!

          • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            That’s normal. It’s meant to be that way. You only have to get up to current code when making major changes, and only for what you’re changing. If you always had to be up to date, no one could afford to maintain a house: you’d be making changes every year.

            • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              2 days ago

              Yeah, I was just giving an example that inspections aren’t required. A less extreme example would be asbestos tiles/insulation but that’s not dangerous unless you damage it

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          81·
          3 days ago

          Lots of houses haven’t had an inspection since they were built, and code was almost always more relaxed.

          My parents built their house in the 70s, like my dad was a mason and he did all the brick, and any contractors for the rest was friends and family. And in a small county they all knew the inspector too.

          I’m sure lots of stuff was overlooked because it was “good enough” and when it was sold 5ish years ago it was “as is” because a ceiling fan on a dimmer wouldn’t have passed inspection.

          Like it wasn’t a lemon, everything was good.

          But the buyers couldn’t have known for sure because they waived inspection.

          Tldr:

          Lots of homes in America won’t/can’t pass inspection, and with the market someone is always willing to roll the dice to buy anyways.

    • akilouOPEnglish
      11·
      3 days ago

      There is a subpanel that this one feeds. See the 70 amp breaker? That’s goes upstairs to another panel there.