Prep for Electrician

The electrician comes this morning to install a new 200 amp service box (breaker panel). He will also be removing all of the old breaker boxes and consolidating the wiring into the new panel. I hope his day goes smoothly. We did a little prep yesterday for his visit. The old man who owned the house before had built a closet enclosure around the fuse box panels (which is a no-no) so we had to remove it so the electrician could work his magic. My brother-in-law and I did all of the demo with a sawzall, hammer, and pry-bar, although he used bare his hands a lot, too.

These are before and after pictures of the "electrical closet".












We also dug a trench. We will be moving the electrical connection from overhead to underground out of necessity because of the new house going up on the front lot. My spouse did most of the digging. Her brother and I removed the deck planks. The trench had to be 3' deep and 3' long. The first 2' were cake, but then we hit a layer of rock and clay and the hole filled up with water. I think the water is just naturally there because it can't soak through the clay. My spouse spent a lot of time bailing water out of the trench with a bucket so she could excavate more. She got really dirty.

Here's a picture of the deck with the boards being removed.







Here are a couple of pics of the trenching process. My spouse put on her rain coat both because it started to rain and because the trench was really muddy. Her boots sprung a leak early on. We all hope the electrician is happy with the trench.