Vent: Nearly fried myself on a 1960s panel swap last Wednesday

I was swapping out an old Federal Pacific breaker panel in a house built in 1963 over in Oak Park last week. The owner wanted a Square D upgrade before they sold the place. I pulled the meter, tested everything dead, and started yanking wires. But when I went to remove the main lugs, one of the bus bars still had juice from a backfeed from a nearby solar panel they didn't tell me about. My tester lit up and I about jumped out of my boots. Took me an extra 3 hours to track down all the hidden feeds and make sure nothing else was live. Cost me $150 in lost time on that job. Has anyone else dealt with sneaky backfeeds from old solar setups or am I just unlucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

wendysanchez14d ago

Always kill the main breaker and check every potential feed point with a tick tracer before disconnecting anything.

tylerpark14d ago

Used to skip tick tracing on older panels (figured they were simple enough) but stories like this make me second guess every time now.