Pro tip: always check the panel schedule BEFORE you disconnect anything

Last month I was doing a service upgrade in a 1950s house in Tacoma. The old panel had handwritten labels that were completely wrong. I shut off what I thought was the kitchen circuit to swap a breaker, but it actually killed the sump pump in the basement. The homeowner came up 20 minutes later asking why there was water on the floor. Has anyone else had a panel schedule lie to them that badly?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_amy1mo ago

Man, does this ever go beyond electrical work? I feel like we're all just trusting labels that someone wrote years ago and hoping they're still true. Like following old driving directions that send you to a dead end, or using a recipe card where your grandma wrote "a pinch" but her pinch was way bigger than yours. How do you even start to trust a system again after it lets you down like that?

logan_ellis1mo ago

Right? Feels like my whole life is built on a sticky note from 2003 that says "probably fine.

hart.sage1mo ago

Tell me about it. Found a panel in an old Seattle bungalow where the label for the living room outlets actually controlled the furnace. Spent an hour troubleshooting a dead circuit before I traced it back to that. Makes you verify every single wire now.