Wednesday, I took the day off work and moved the bulk of the circuits off our old FPE “Federal Noark” panel, to the new Square D QO panel. There are three circuits remaining to be done, all of which are connected via conduit, so I’ll need to reroute these before I can rip the FPE panel off the wall. I’ve blocked off next Wednesday to do this, as the wife -n- kids figure to be out of the house most of the day, and I have no meetings at work.

As with every other project in this house, half the work seems to involve fixing shoddy previous-owner retrofit work I encounter along the way, and this project has been no exception. Here’s what I’ve found and fixed so far.

1. Old QO subpanel didn’t have its netural bus isolated from ground. New panel has a separate ground bus and an isolated neutral bus.
2. The basement clubroom exhaust fan circuit was wired with 14 gauge wire but had a 30 amp breaker. It now has a 15 amp breaker.
3. Whole house fan circuit was doubled up with one of the lighting circuits. Someone probably did this at one point to free up a slot. They are now two separate circuits again.
4. The wiring to the boiler room/office light switch had individual strands of wire running unprotected behind the paneling. Apparently, when the room was finished, someone removed some conduit but didn’t bother to replace the wire. I replaced it with romex.

I’m sure there’ll be more to come..