Old Circuit Breaker Fuse

Fuse boxes are old electrical panels that use fuses instead of circuit breakers to protect your wires from becoming overloaded.

Old circuit breaker fuse.

When a circuit breaker regularly trips or a fuse repeatedly blows it is a sign that you are making excessive demands on the circuit. Cost to replace a circuit breaker switch or fuse. Changing a fuse box to a circuit breaker is a challenging task for the average do it yourself person. This certainly is an advantage but if you are thinking that you won t miss the good old fuse then you are certainly wrong.

Why did the customer call us. The cost replace a circuit breaker switch is 150 to 200 which includes labor and materials fuses can be bought for as low as 5 to 40 depending on which type you need for your home. Fuses aren t inherently unsafe. Commonly these service panels are located in utility rooms garages or basements.

For any given project the selection to use either a circuit breaker or a fuse set will ultimately remain the decision of the electrical designer. They work just like circuit breakers except they can t be reset. Here s a quick review of how to use a fuse box with the screw in fuses safely and some discussion about what to look out for in an old house. This customer called captain electric because the lights were flickering in the house.

The electrical service panel commonly known these days as a breaker box has come a long way since the early 1900s almost every home has some type of service panel whether it be a fuse panel or a circuit breaker panel. When a circuit draws too much electricity the fuse burns out and must be replaced. Most of the cost is for labor the average cost for an electrician is 40 99 per hour and this job can take 2 3 hours. In other words there is no way to shut off the electricity coming into the fuse box unless you ask the utility company to pull the meter.

The reason is that the wiring has to be worked hot. Hence the breaker or fuse is intended to trip or blow before the circuit wires can heat to a dangerous level. Circuit breakers have made our lives easier by eliminating the need to physically replace the fuse after every short circuit or overload incident. The circuit breaker or fuse is sized to match the load carrying capacity of the wires in that circuit.