This post is a reminder for inspectors to be so careful when it comes to breaker panels. Yesterday I was inspecting a new home and almost got the shock of my life, and could have lost it as well. We sometimes get in a flow with our inspecting and don't think to check certain things. I now have  new items to check when it comes to the breaker panel's dead front cover.

After inspecting inside the box, I was putting the cover back on while talking to the buyer and just remember seeing a flash of light, hearing a POW and jumping back stunned. I'm not sure who was shocked more...her or myself! After regaining my composure, I realized what had happened.....the screw had penetrated one of the live wires inside. I then stood there thinking.....what should I do now? I noticed that none of the breakers had tripped which told me that it probably didn't hit a branch wire. Then I thought, if it is puncturing into a main feed conductor, then there is no way for me to disconnect power to it. I still smelled the smoke caused from the initial puncture and didn't know if it was still shorting out to the panel box or not. My heart was racing and could envision the house burning down, so I flipped off the main disconnect, grabbed one of my rubber faced gloves that I use when I climb roofs and took my screwdriver that has a rubber handle and held it at it's very end and carefully backed off the screw until it fell with the cover to the garage floor.

My lesson learned here is to pay more attention to make sure wires and feeds are not too close and directly behind a screw mounting hole and to also double check the screw as I would have never thought to pay special attention to the screw. Of course all screws that secure the covers are required to be blunt tipped screws and not sharp tipped, but I will now pay more attention to the ends of the screws now.

Here is what happened. The electrician was too lazy to route the service conductors far enough back into the box to allow more clearance for the cover screws, so he just took some cutters and shortened the screw for this particular screw mount. Not only was the screw still too long, but cutting it made the edges of the screw sharp. These covers have six mounting screws and of course I would pick the one with the sharp edge to back into this particular hole. Still if I had used one of the full length screws, it still may have punctured it. So from now I will check to make sure the screws have not been cut and if I feel the conductors are jut too close to the screw holes, I just won't install it. I called the builder after this and made sure the electrician got out to take care of this at once.

You can see where the screw hit one of the main conductors.

Screw was cut off about 1/8 inch.

Kent Keith

Fort Worth Home Inspector

www.fortworthinspector.com