Should I Stop A Pro Electrician From Working On My Panel HOT?

[Midpack]

I know there are some very knowledgeable electrical people here. I'm having a licensed professional electrician with decades of experience put a 250V/50A breaker and receptacle in our house. He did not throw the main switch for the work he's done, but all of that was downstream of the breaker - e.g. conduit, pulling wire, receptacle, etc. - so no real risks. I told him he was welcome to throw the main, he said it wouldn't be necessary.

He's coming back today to install the breaker and make the final tie in. All's left is connecting the ground and wiring to the new breaker and clicking it in to the panel in an existing space, so I'm guessing 5-10 minutes at the most. I told him we'd be prepared for him to throw the main for that, he said again it won't be necessary

Should I insist?

I watched the work he's done so far, and it's top notch - I know from 35 years of watching pros work in industry. The guy is the husband of a friend of DW, otherwise I probably wouldn't even be asking - I'd insist.

I worked in manufacturing my whole career. We would never let any electrician work on a live circuit and followed all lock-out procedures 100% of the time. If any electrician tried to take shortcuts in my presence, I would stop them no ifs, ands, or buts. I have seen residential electricians work briefly on live 125V, and I've felt that jolt by mistake a couple times in my life. But this is 250V/50A in the 200A panel, I have never seen anyone do that before - and it makes me very uncomfortable.

 

[Car-Guy]

I'm not a pro but I do a lot of electrical work and always throw the main or at least throw the local CB and check with a VOM before proceeding. However, I've seen the pros work on hot boxes many times. Is he (or she I guess) bonded/insured against any damage/injury, or worse?

I've done all my own worked since we moved in here (~15 years ago) but If I needed to call a pro, I think I'd let him/her do their thing.

 

[REWahoo]

Why not just throw the main yourself when he starts working? That's what I would do if I was concerned.

 

[Chuckanut]

I have had a local guy do some minor electrical work for me and he never turns off the power at the breaker. Apparently, he is very good at not grounding himself.

 

[Fermion]

Its like 5 seconds to flip the breaker....I am not understanding?

 

[Midpack]

Its like 5 seconds to flip the breaker....I am not understanding?

It is 5 seconds, I am not sure why some electricians are willing to work hot...but I don't want to insult a pro. I assume maybe it's not wise to energize everything all at once when it comes time to re-energize? But we could throw all the breakers, and bring them back one at a time, wouldn't add much time [this is my untrained guess].

Shouldn't matter, but the main switch is just outside with a zip tie on it, presumably put there by the builder or utility. But it's a garden variety white zip tie, so I could replace it no problem.

 

[MarieIG]

You can worry about insulting him - or worry about him frying himself.

Perhaps, do a risk/ benefit analysis.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I work on mine all the time without turning the main breaker. BUT, I am always working on the cold side of one of the individual internal circuit breakers, once I have completely removed it from the panel. I would not worry as long as the persons knows what they are doing.

If one is working on the hot side, I would definitely flip the main breaker, mine 400a and is located at the incoming panel outside.

 

[joesxm3]

Good question. I will ask mine when he comes. Lights in cellar would go out. I can supply lots of battery lanterns.

If there is nothing drawing power on the circuit how is a 60 amp different than a 15? Don't they plug into the same bus? Sorry if stupid question

 

[Car-Guy]

I assume maybe it's not wise to energize everything all at once when it comes time to re-energize? But we could throw all the breakers, and bring them back one at a time, wouldn't add much time [this is my untrained guess].

If that were true, it would be a real problem here with as often as the power fails. Sometimes just a few minutes and sometimes much, much longer. I just have surge protectors on all sensitive stuff. Zero problems.

 

[CRLLS]

I work on mine all the time without turning the main breaker. BUT, I am always working on the cold side of one of the individual internal circuit breakers, once I have completely removed it from the panel. I would not worry as long as the persons knows what they are doing.

If one is working on the hot side, I would definitely flip the main breaker, mine 400a and is located at the incoming panel outside.

I do the same thing. Working on the cold side of an individual circuit is safe for a pro. IMO, it is virtually the same as working in the breaker box with the main breaker off and power still coming into the box. I would never tell a licensed professional how to do his job unless it affects the end result. In this case, I wouldn't say anything.

 

[Telly]

......
He's coming back today to install the breaker and make the final tie in. All's left is connecting the ground and wiring to the new breaker and clicking it in to the panel in an existing space, so I'm guessing 5-10 minutes at the most. I told him we'd be prepared for him to throw the main for that, he said again it won't be necessary

Should I insist?

No. Electricians commonly work on live panels. Shutting off all power to a commercial entity is a problem. Shutting off power to the breaker rack of a residential service panel means inconvenience to the average customer. Having to reset things, can't use other items in the house while work is going on, etc. etc. For the simple act of what you need done to complete the job, I think few would turn off power. I'd let him be. And don't talk to him while he's doing it

 

[Willers]

You hired a licensed professional to do the work for you. I suggest letting him do his work and not stepping in. He knows what he is doing and likely has done it hundreds of times.

If you do decide to throw the breaker just don't ask him to help reset anything on power up. If you make the call it is up to you to address any result of your actions.

 

[Jerry1]

I would just let him do his thing. Reading your post about your background, I would recommend you tell him you’re going to hit the main breaker. Just tell him exactly the way it is - you can see he’s a pro but you just can’t stomach not throwing the breaker. Nothing insulting about that.

 

[Aerides]

We had some breakers swapped out a few weeks ago, and no throwing of the main was needed. Licensed pros, already passed county inspection.

 

[MRG]

He's doing the work, let him. You've expressed your willingness to cut the main, and he doesn't see that it is necessary. Let it go.

 

[Texas Proud]

I recently had a problem with my oven.... it did not work but it appeared to have electricity... bought a new oven and had the same problem.. guy installing said it was a wiring issue...


Well, electrician came and said the breaker broke ... he replaced a 30 amp breaker without turning off the main...


I think if he is fine with doing it his way let him do it..

 

[JoeWras]

Let him do his job. He has the experience.

It's not like throwing the main makes the panel perfectly safe. Most panels still have live lugs exposed, even after flipping the main. The only way to de-energize the lugs is to pull the meter. Should you tell him to pull the meter? Of course not.

 

[ls99]

^^^^^What he said.
I've done lots of stuff with 120/240 VAC without turning off breakers, main or otherwise. Early in life as electrician student in steel mill, the old timers would touch with calloused fingers 600VAC terminals to check if it was live. Sometimes even had to lick fingertips to get better feel. They did advise us newbies nt to try it, the calluses made good insulators.
OTOH when working on electric trains with 700VDC and 5000 Amp breakers, it was prudent to turn off power and lock the switch. AKA Red tag procedure.

At relatively low voltages of AC current the zero crossings let one break free if zapped, High current DC will lock nerves/muscles, Not possible to let go, and guarantee getting fried. The smell of fried humans is very much unpleasant.
Now long ago working on CRT TV's, got zapped many times by AC Kilovolts. Did get may attention.
So, unless you know what you are doing, turn off the breaker.

As for th OP's concern, let the elctrician do his thing.

 

[Winemaker]

He's fine.

 

[spencnor]

I worked in manufacturing my whole career. We would never let any electrician work on a live circuit and followed all lock-out procedures 100% of the time.

I retired as commercial electrician in 2014 with 30+ years working for major regional electrical contractors in the SF Bay Area. Approximately my first 20 years most electricians worked everything hot, on branch circuits and up to distribution panels. Luckily I never had a serious injury from arc flash or a close call being electrocuted. I still remember one fatal incident on a dot-com project in 2000 where a painter on a high lift was electrocuted.

About the last 10 years of my career the bigger contractors started adhering to the guidelines of NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace. The company I worked for in the early 2000’s decided to hired a safety director who started to implement NFPA70E because there were projects where bidders safety experience rates were reviewed.

I would say that any electrician and company today is well aware, or should be, of the guidelines of NFPA70E. From your description I would say that this electrician is not following NFPA70E in working the panel board hot. I do know that the smaller contractors and independents generally do what is expedient and do work many things energized as they think it is low risk. But accidents do happen big and small.

 

[mountainsoft]

Do you turn off the breaker to plug a lamp into a wall socket? Probably not. As long as you don't touch the live conductors it's perfectly safe.

I generally prefer to turn off the main breaker when working inside the panel, just to be extra safe. However, there are times when this simply isn't possible. There is no "main" breaker in the small panel in our pump house, it only has four breakers and is not a subpanel. The only option is to work on it live. Or, we might have something running in the house that we don't want to interrupt just to install a breaker, such as a TV recording or a long video processing project.

As others mentioned, even with the breaker turned off there are live conductors in most panels. Turning off the main breaker reduces the chance of accidental contact, but doesn't eliminate it.

If I can't turn off the main breaker I'm extra careful feeding in a new cable and connecting the wire, particularly the uninsulated ground wire. I also turn off the breaker I'm adding before installing it so no current flows until I turn it on.

Years ago we had a new service line added and the power company tech wired up the new connection to a live 200A cable, sitting on the wet ground at the pedestal. He said as long as he doesn't touch the conductors it's perfectly safe. Still, I don't know that I would want to work on something like that live.

 

[JoeWras]

Years ago we had a new service line added and the power company tech wired up the new connection to a live 200A cable, sitting on the wet ground at the pedestal. He said as long as he doesn't touch the conductors it's perfectly safe. Still, I don't know that I would want to work on something like that live.

That's pretty wild. I've seen those guys work hot, because they basically have to, but they take some other precautions like wearing smocks and gloves up to their armpits.

 

[thatguy]

My understanding is a new breaker can be easily snapped into a live panel with no exposure to live electricity. The new breaker is off for all work downstream of it. This is not a situation of working on live circuits. I'm not an electrician so don't rely on my understanding.

 

[skipro33]

You don't need to throw the main to install a 50amp circuit off the main. Think about it: the 50amp circuit isn't completed to the main power until the 50 amp circuit breaker is installed. The electrician can wire up everything to an uninstalled 50amp breaker, then pop it into the panel. Nothing is exposed to the electrician.