i found where all mine went and marked it on the panel door. i use North,E,S,West for the walls to identify outlets of each room. A GPS app can be used if you don't have a compass...

The NWSE idea is great, very good simple idea, my house well aligned too, the rear faces exactly south.

 

Sounds like you could really benefit from a professional inspection.

Having a garage addition put on. Electrician will be out to move main service from the house to the garage first, then to the house. While he's here I'll discuss the cost of a panel upgrade as well as a review of the electrical grounding going on. For now all the grounds I have installed are tied to the ground rod AND to the panel mast. I'm thinking about putting another ground rod just below the present panel meter. That is to say the meter that is there now will soon be moved. Also a disconnect will be installed to bring it up to fire code.

Nuf of my problems. The TS wants to identify circuit breakers. There are several methods for doing so. Radio's, noisy equipment and such. However, some of my circuits are strictly for lighting and can not be plugged into without removing a lamp and installing one of those screw base plugs that go in a light socket. THEN you can plug a radio into that.

Oh, and be aware that UPS's (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) may keep things on when you think the breaker might be off. Just be sure to eliminate all possible false signals.

 

Something like this:
Move the wires that currently run from the pole to the house.
Move them to the back corner of the garage (I hate overhead wires in the yard).
Run through the garage to the front of the garage.
Mount new meter and disconnect on the face of the garage. (not prettiest, but easily found by fire department)
Run from the meter to the original house mast.
Add the proposed ground rod.

Possibly have the main panel in the house redone. Inside the garage will be a panel for the shop over the garage (the addition). I also want to run the cable to the garage first, then to the house. That gets those wires away from overhead where a tree is growing and will one day interfere with the wires. The mast at the rear of the garage can run either through the garage in a steel conduit or can run under the eaves to the front of the garage. Of course that has to be discussed with Sparky.

 

Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread. Forgive this old bird.

 

@Just Another Sparky said:

Few things: If US.
You have the notions of detached and attached buildings.
Detached buildings get ground rod(s).

You have the terms continuous loads

Wiring is rated for 80% of the breaker rating in general.

Motors foul things up a bit. Raceways foul things up a bit.

There is the notion of a main breaker panel and a mail lug panel. Only distinction is in a main lug panel, there is no main breaker.

You can use a main breaker panel as a "main lug panel". The advantage is you can use the disconnect. You CAN have a 200A main breaker fed by a 60A breaker. As long as the wiring is rated for 60A your OK. You have to buy a ground bar kit to do so and remove the ground neutral bond.

Ground/neutral get hooked up at one place only.

Cable/telco should be bonded to this one place. More difficult if you have a detached garage.

Consider at least an interlocked back-fed breaker and outside power input for external generator power, It won;t be whole house, but it will help.

if your worried about cost, now is the time to consider critical and non-critical loads and separate into panels.

Consider what happens when you add a whole house backup generator. There are things you can do now that will save in the long run.

Hey, I have to do a fuse to breaker upgrade. Remember those. 1960's house.

 

As soon as service conductors enter a building they need to hit a disconnect and overcurrent protection, which turns them into feeder conductors. Can't run unprotected service conductors through the interior of a building. You'd need to bury them underneath the garage, encase them in 2" of concrete, run them sufficiently high over the roof to a mast on the the south side of the garage or put the service entrance equipment and mast on the north side of the garage. Or stick a fusible disconnect there and call it your service entrance equipment. Nothing wrong with trenching over to the south side either if you're having it moved anyways.

Remember that equipment grounding conductors need to be routed with their associated circuit conductors to minimize inductive reactance. If line and neutral pass through a steel conduit on the way to the load, but the equipment ground heading back to the panel takes a separate route, you've just built a choke which could potentially increase the time it takes for the upstream overcurrent protective device to operate.

You need at least two ground rods no matter what you do. Or a ground rod and a concrete encased electrode, ground rod and a metal underground water pipe, etc, etc. One ground rod on it's own is never sufficient. Just something to plan for.

 

Well, I, for one, appreciate the comments. However, this is not my thread, and again I apologize for having pulled this thread off topic. If we're to continue discussing what my electric dreams are - we can start a separate thread. For now I believe the TS has gotten sufficient information concerning the identifying which circuit breaker controls what outlets and/or smoke detectors.

 

@Just Another Sparky

At home I have a couple of problems that haven't been fixed:
Cause: Porch addition built in 1960's home
Telephone is also connected to water pipe. he the same burried segment.

Home has fuses. A porch was added and the electric (fused at the primary of the transformer for four houses). The feeder does not have a drip loop and did cause water problems. It passes under the eve of the roof through two brick walls in the porch, So, the space is not quite indoor and not quite outdoor either.

No free circuits. Some technically overloaded (refrigerator, freezer and microwave). That doesn't concern me too much.
GFCI receptacles in porch and outside. Not kitchen or bath. bath, I don't care. Hair dryer has it's own GFCI. Toothbrush charging bases are fine. Beard timmer charger OK.

Uses the copper water pipe as ground. It is burried underground (basement floor) for about 25' after traveling about 10' above ground.

I believe the utility can electrically disconnect the meter.

Some newer electric moves/upgrades in the neighborhood included a disconnect before the meter.

 

We're still off topic. I'll start a thread so we can continue this conversation without absconding with the TS thread.

 

I think I'm done.

 

HERE is the new thread if anyone wants to comment. Let's stop hijacking and going off topic.