I love my home, but

[SMS]

I don't understand how this ever passed inspection.

The simple answer is it passed inspection because it is grandfathered. Heck, in some sense, a properly installed fuse panel is better than a breaker. Breakers get hung, fuses don't lol. The biggest issue is going to be capacity. If it's only, say, 60 amp service and you are a gadget whore you might have issues.

There are a lot of homes in the U.S. that still have fuse boxes. If you don't have the $$ for an upgrade, I'd have an electrician you trust inspect it, make sure the components are sound and move on until you are ready to make major upgrades.

 

[Fyrtwuck]

For anyone stupid enough to consider this.... It's a joke.

Yes it was, but anyone with fifty years of age or older has probably seen it done. I know I have. It was pretty common practice in those days.

One of the inspectors I used to work with was called to an apartment complex in NW Okc after a fire. The cause of the fire was electrical. When they opened the fuse panel, instead of fuses they found pieces of copper pipe where the fuses were supposed to be. After seeing that, they went to every panel in the complex and found the same thing in every box. There were over fifty apartments with copper pipes for fuses. They were all pulled and the apartment manager received citations from the fire department and the city electrical inspectors.

 

[Tanis143]

Breakers get hung, fuses don't lol.

This is all too true. The last rental we were in we had two rooms that were pigtailed together behind a 15 amp GFI outlet in the bathroom. Those two rooms were the living room and our computer room. Living room had a plasma tv, old school dvr, xbox and a computer. The computer room had three computers, two 19" CRT monitors, a 32in CRT tv, another dvr (before the days of whole home dvr), plus all the computer accessories and all my chargers for work related items. All of this together was pulling WAY more than 15 amps. Wife called me one day while I was at work to tell me those two rooms had no power. Got home to find the GFI was smoked. That was when I found out how it was wired. To install a new breaker and split the rooms would have been easy due to the breaker box being about 6 feet away in the master bedroom closet on an interior wall BUT the place was wired with aluminum wiring and I was not going to mess with that (I know that by itself aluminum is fine, its when you try mixing copper and aluminum without the proper connectors that causes fires). Landlord wouldn't pay to have it fixed properly so I through a .59 receptacle in its place, took down as much eq as I could and told her I was not responsible for it. We bought our house 3 weeks later and moved out.

 

[Dumpstick]

I had a house on the SW side of OKC years ago. Near Newcastle and Portland. House was built in 1946 or so.
The original 4 room and bath had 40 amp service. 2 20 amp circuits, with the screw in fuses.
Sometime in the late 50 or early 60s the house was enlarged, 3 rooms added, along with 2 more 20 amp circuits.

80 amp total service, 4 circuits. Fortunately (?) I didn't own very much, and personal computers were some years in the future.
I never really had any trouble with lack of power.

 

[Pulp]

According to an electrical class I sat through many years ago fuses are actually safer than breakers. A breaker takes 1/4 second to trip, a fuse is instant. Unless you have delayed fuses. Like I said, this was many years ago, it may not be true any more.

 

[Gunbuffer]

Fuses still have their place

 

[John6185]

When they blow, just put a penny underneath.

Let’s go check out some old home, maybe we’ll find a 1909s VDB penny worth thousands!