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Has Achieved Nirvana |
We’ve been in this house for ages but have never figured out and documented which outlets and fixtures map to which breakers in the electric panel. A few major things are marked on the panel but we would like to have a full map. Are there any reasonably priced gizmos that would make this easier/less time-consuming than the obvious “switch a breaker off and check everywhere to see what went off in the house”?
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
$38.00 on Amazon. If you get one I’ll help you figure out the best way to use it Klein ET 300 breaker finder
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Also try eBay.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Home Depot seems to have them even cheaper. And in stock at my store. Looks like the same one? https://www.homedepot.com/p/Kl...nder-ET300/202330830
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
We have Pushmatic breakers. Will the unit work with those?
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Looks like the same unit. They’ll work on any breaker. The only problem with Pushmatics is that they won’t always reset when you **** them off or they trip. It’s rare, but that’s how they fail. You don’t have to shut them off to identify circuits but it’s more accurate. No fear - changing one is no big deal and they’re readily available used. New Chinese reproductions are also available and seem to work just fine.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Replacements are in stock.  We had two or three neighbors who have had their panels replaced as part of a generator installation. We asked for the discards....  So what about can lights? I'm pretty sure we have a screw in light socket adapter for a regular base bulb, but we also have some a few oddball can lights...you know, a weird GU something bulb in a 3" diameter can that's in a soffit next to the kitchen table. And hanging ceiling fixtures?
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Guessing the age of your house but lighting is usually pretty simple. Is your panel a mix of 20 amp circuit breakers, some double pole breakers and maybe 2 15A circuit breakers? If so, the 15s are most likely lighting circuits. It was the most common way to wire houses from the 1930’s through the 1980’s. Turn one of them off and see what lights go out.
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Minor Deity |
We replaced our whole box in 2018 and it's still not perfectly labeled, which drives me NUTS. Ima get me one of those.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
I forgot about the transfer switch....  Our house is wired very strangely, and there have been changes since it was built in 1960. I'm heading off to the land of nod, but would love to pick this up again tomorrow. I really appreciate the help!
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Assuming they were installed correctly back in the day (and I have no reason to think they were not), there is no reason to change your panels. Pushmatics are no longer manufactured but they are are of high quality and there is no reason to replace them. I’ve seen a lot of them and have owned a few and they work just fine. Why do you have a transfer switch if you don’t have a generator? 
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Manual transfer switch. Big plug on the outside of the house. Big arse cord that goes from portable generator to plug. wtg drags generator from garage. Not as expensive as a natural gas standby generator. Much nicer than running tons of extension cords to various appliances during a power outage...it's been there since around 2000. We also have a very small setback issue that we would have to get a variance for to install a standby generator. Everyone within 250 feet of our house has to be notified if we apply for a variance. You may remember our next door neighbors...her head would have exploded if we had wanted to install the unit....she was having fits when our fence was being installed...but they're gone and now it would be straightforward. Or at least one would hope.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Got it. Generator is a separate issue which you will want to address if you get tired of dragging out the portable generator every time there is an outage. Are outages common in your area? Are you tired of dragging out the portable generator? I thought of putting in one here but there hasn’t been a significant outage since the late 70’s and it’s not worth the expense. The little generator panel is simply an extension of the main panel and you’ll identify circuit breakers the same way.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Outages used to be more frequent and of longer duration. Smart grid technology has helped a lot, but we have overhead lines and lots of trees in backyards. Wind and ice are our enemies. We've had a couple of three day outages in the 42 years we've been here, and a day's outage happens every few years. So no, probably not a ton. I don't mind dragging the generator out, but I'm not getting any younger. That said, we do have some nice young families who have moved into the neighborhood and I can always call them to just move it from the garage to out back. I can handle the rest. The generator guys are all installing new panels when they put in the automated transfer switch and the generator. Are they just padding the bill with unnecessary work? Other folks are replacing panels even without installing a generator or upgrading service to 200 amps. I didn't really understand why, and I'm glad to hear you say that what we have is totally acceptable. There's no question it's nice to have a standby kick in without having to do anything. But it's expensive and probably not really necessary.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
That's what I figured. I can't believe I didn't write down which circuits get switched over. We're the ones who told the electrician which ones we wanted to be able to run on the generator... 
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well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum Off Key Is there an electrician in the house?