Vent: tripped a circuit breaker with my own drill battery charger

Happened yesterday on a job in a new condo building downtown. I plugged my Bosch charger into the same outlet as the homeowner's sump pump. whole panel went dark. Took me 20 minutes to find the right breaker in the basement because nobody labeled anything. Anyone else run into power issues on new builds where the electrician skimped on the panel layout?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_jenkins23d ago

Did the electrician at least put a proper panel schedule in the door or was it just a blank white sheet like they do in half these new builds? I've seen them leave the breaker labels completely empty on purpose and it drives me nuts. Might be worth asking the super if you can get a copy of the load calc to see what else shares that circuit.

jessica_miller23d ago

I used to be one of those people who didn't really care about panel schedules. I figured as long as the power worked, that was enough. But after moving into a house where the electrician left the entire panel blank, I changed my mind completely. Had a water heater go out and spent two hours flipping breakers in the dark trying to find which one killed the power to it, while water was dripping everywhere. A simple labeled sheet would have saved me a ton of frustration and maybe a flooded basement. Now I check every panel in any place I look at, even rentals. It might seem like a small thing, but it tells you a lot about how much care went into the whole electrical job.