Potential dodgy electrical in house and suggestions on what to do?

[Locut0s]

My other post about networking has reminded me of a situation we have in our basement that I think might be potentially dangerous. It seems that whoever lived in this house several decades bad decided they wanted to make one of our basement rooms into a home theatre room. Sounds good enough but it doesn't seem like he knew what the fuck he was doing.

A while back our basement was flooded when the sewer backed up into our basement (yeah it was not fun). At any rate this flooding necessitated a remodelling of our entire basement (Luckily it was the city that was at fault and our insurance paid for everything). During the remodelling I noticed that the speaker wires and some of the other stuff the original guy had run to that HT room were REALLY badly done. Some time before this we also had someone come into our house to fix bad reception in that room room on Cable TV. Well it turns out the guy had put something like 5 or 6 cable splitters in between the main cable and that room. Some of them were just jury rigged splitters where he had soldered everything messily together!

So what's the problem? Well that room is also serviced by a separate breaker box from the rest of the house and we did not get this replaced when the basement was done. Would not surprise me at all if this was installed by that guy too and god only knows how bad a job he did. For one thing this box is completely separate from our main breaker box. This means that you can turn off ALL the breakers on the main box and the other box would still deliver electricity to that room. Is this normal? Shouldn't the 2nd box be tied into the main box somehow? Shouldn't I be able to turn off the 2nd breaker box FROM the first/main one?

We've never had any electrical issues in that room but there are a lot of devises plugged in there including my large screen plasma, speaker system and 3 or 4 game consoles. I'm guessing it would be a good idea to have someone come in and look at it anyway though? I'm guessing an electrician would charge for just taking a look right? Will be hard to talk my mother into it if so lol, FTL.

Let's say it turns out to be all against code and not properly done. What kind of legal position would we be in if we did NOT get it fixed considering someone else did this?

 

[Ms. DICKINSON]

I bet that house used to be a weed house. Good thing you don't have to pay for the electricity to the basement.

 

[Sea Moose]

Sorted

 

[Vette73]

The box in the basement is a sub-panel. There SHOULD be a 240 breaker in the main panel thet drives it, unless it is a single breaker/120V sub but not sure why they would do that.

What you can do is follow the main power wires running from the box to the main panel or where ever they go. See where the power is coming from. That is the first thing and if it does not go to the main panel then it needs to go there and have its own breaker. Also see what gauge the wire is. How many breakers are in the Sub and what Amp rating (15, 20)?

 

[Squisher]

Marlin is right. When you say all are you including any large breakers that are twice as wide as the rest?

If he spliced into the drop or the mains coming into the house that would be a reason for concern, to say the least.

 

[edro]

Pics of both service boxes?

That would be sweet if the second box was leaching from a neighbor or before your meter. jk...

 

[Modelworks]

This means that you can turn off ALL the breakers on the main box and the other box would still deliver electricity to that room. Is this normal?

You can have a sub panel in another part of the home, like in a garage, but there must be at least one disconnect on the home that will remove all power to every panel in the home. Sometimes this is done with the power from the street going to the meter base, then to a main disconnect, then to the interior of the home.

Shouldn't the 2nd box be tied into the main box somehow? Shouldn't I be able to turn off the 2nd breaker box FROM the first/main one?

All that is required is that there be a disconnect somewhere in the path between the power source and the connection to the panel. It can be in the 1st panel or outside in another panel. However, you cannot just add another panel to the first panel because you ran out of breaker space. Service panels have bus bars, aluminum or copper metal bars that have a current rating. Adding another panel to this can exceed the current rating for the panel and is not allowed unless the combined load of the second panel and the first does not exceed the rating of the first panel.

The normal way this is done is outside the home a panel is installed which contains a main disconnect breaker. Off of that panel one feeder goes to the 1st panel and a 2nd feeder to the second panel. You see this a lot with heat pump installs where there is no breaker inside the home , only outside in its own panel.

Let's say it turns out to be all against code and not properly done. What kind of legal position would we be in if we did NOT get it fixed considering someone else did this?

Legally nothing can force someone to upgrade their homes wiring. If it is really bad then the utility can require it be brought up to code or they will threaten discontinuing service, that is extremely rare though. If you have home insurance they can refuse to pay if a fire were to result and it was due to electrical issues.