Video Transcript
Dylan: Hi everyone, Dylan Wolf here with Windermere Real Estate. And today, as part of the home inspection series, I am here with Hamed from Caspian Home Inspections. Welcome, Hamed.
Hamed: Thank you.
Dylan: So we’re standing at the electrical panel.
Hamed: Yeah.
Dylan: So what do you inspect over here? There’s not a lot to see, right?
Hamed: Yeah, that’s of thing. So the things that we have, this Deadpool right here, this is your panel. So we have panel and sub-panel, there are some differences between them. So for the main panel, first, we’re just going to check the breakers. We’re going to take a picture and make sure when we open this panel, we’re not going to turn off something which is not a good idea. So we’re going to open all these screws, check inside to see how those look like, the main wire and also the wiring, the branch wires. We just want to make sure that there’s no capping, there’s no double wiring or the wiring size are just suitable for these breakers. Because each breakers, if you see from here, I mean, I don’t know that you can see from here, that each breakers has a different size. For example, this is 15 amp. This is 15 amp, you have 30 amp, 40 amp. So all these breakers, they have their own wire.
Dylan: Okey.
Hamed: So if you have a wire size which is suitable for that kind of breaker, we just want to make sure that we have right one. So most of the fire hazard that happen in the fire, things happening around the house is because sometimes you have a 40 amps and you use a wire which is suitable for 15 amps.
Dylan: Okey.
Hamed: So that’s the reason that we just check, make sure that all the wires are right. And mostly, we just check for the safety things.
Dylan: Okay. Do you want to look inside?
Hamed: Yeah, we can look inside. Yeah, for sure. I’m just going to open it and just check inside and just [crosstalk 00:01:41].
Dylan: Okay, let’s do that.
Hamed: Yeah, sure. Absolutely.
Dylan: You just opened it up. Show us what you’re looking for, then.
Hamed: Okay, so the first thing that we just want to make sure that if you see these knots right here, there’s some right here and there’s some here, that just is a way for you to put your wire inside. You want to make sure that all of them are filled.
Dylan: Okey.
Hamed: If it’s not, if there’s a wire, that’s fine. But when there’s no wire and it’s empty, it’s a problem so you need to just want to make sure. We’re just going to check out our main wiring that just comes from the service entry. We’re just going to check the size of this wire that you can just find. And typically, because we know the size so it’s easy for us, but for every wire there’s a number right here that starts from like 14 or 12 to 4/0, which means, the 4/0 is the thickest one and it has more power. I mean, has something that you can just put more electricity on that.
Hamed: And for example, for this one it’s a aluminum, the material, and also is 4/0, which just means that you can have for 200 amp, the power of this. So the amperage of this this main panel is 200 amp.
Dylan: Okey.
Hamed: Which is good. But we’re not going to decide based off this one. There are three clues that we need to find for this amperage of the wire because first is the wire size. Then there’s the main breaker, which, right here is 200 amp. And there’s a third one, which is the number. Every panel has their amperage size, we just going to check this one. And after we see that all these clues are the same number, we’re going to say, “Okay, this is 200 amps panel.”
Dylan: Okey.
Hamed: And then, we’re just going to go check for the wire. If you see, this is going to be for your neutral and grounding, and then you’re just going to come out to all your breakers. And you see this wiring, all wiring. So this is a wire like 12 or 14, which is good for 15. And also 13, which just has different numbers, which, if you see, is getting bigger. But the number is getting a smaller. For example, this is 14 and this is maybe 10.
Dylan: Yeah.
Hamed: You know what I’m saying? So this is totally different. So this one is right here. They have their own, we just want to make sure that every wire just goes in one hole. And we just want to make sure there is no other wire coming inside. There are some people that they just put wires, just want to get some electricity for free, they put some wires behind our work.
Dylan: Okey
Hamed: Yeah.
Dylan: Well, thank you for that.
Hamed: Sure.
Dylan: And I’m sure there’s a lot more about the panel…
Hamed: Oh, yeah.
Dylan: And electricity in general when it comes to the house. For now, if you want to learn more about this or about a home inspection in general, please contact me or Hamed with Caspian Home Inspection and we’re more than happy to answer any questions that you might have. For now, thank you for watching.