AskCodeMan

Jerry, here's another that I saw today , another first. I'm very familiar with FPE's but this is weird. What's the deal with the center 70? The top image is pretty big, just click it to get in close.

That's the FPE version of a split bus panel - the 70 amp in the top main section serves as the main for the lower portion of the panel, the lower portion of the panel is de-energized when that 70 amp breaker is flipped to 'off'.

Note the double pole thin breaker in the top main section - that should be replaced with a full-sized breaker as that location is not made for the thin breakers, plus, that now opens up two more breaker slots in the main section, which currently has 6 mains, but now has openings for two more mains ... not good.

Another thing which looks really screwy in there is the uninsulated neutral/grounding conductor with the service entrance conductors (being uninsulated for that use is okay), It looks like some of the strands of that conductor were split off and are run to the grounding bushing, which means that the remaining strands of the neutral conductor of the service entrance conductors are of an 'unknown size'.

You wrote up the other items in there too, I am sure. Besides, it is an FPE, so it will all go away when it is replaced with a new panel.

Oh man.., I almost said split bus but I thought the bus(es) were connected under the 70. When I blow up the image it looks like the N/G comes in from the back and there is a separate conductor coming in from the front of the conduit-through the busing and then down the right side to the N/G bus. You see the same thing?

Looks like there are two bare uninsulated copper conductors coming out of the conduit, which is really strange because if there was a bare grounding conductor, the neutral conductor would have been insulated. Strange.

I get the all good ones...