Updating Electricity - Fun With Sub-Panels, Part I

We recently did a fair amount of electrical work on our bungalow.  Before we began, we had three separate electrical panels -- that we knew about:

1 - the main panel (with circuit breakers) outside the house;
2 - a sub-panel in our unfinished basement with circuit breakers; and
3 - another sub-panel on the stairs down to our unfinished basement -- with fuses (and lined, of course, with asbestos).

I had never lived in a house with fuses before.  Nor did I really appreciate how cool a circuit breaker is.

That all changed after we moved into our bungalow and plugged in our washer, dryer, and a microwave.  All three were apparently on the same line.  And using any two of the three at the same time would consistently blow a fuse.

I began to appreciate why they lined the sub-panel with asbestos after seeing one of the fuses start glowing dark red, then bright red, and finally white hot before exploding.  This had no real entertainment value for me, except in hindsight.

I should add that finding fuses can be a challenge.  That's a problem when you go through them quickly (let's say by regularly forgetting that you should avoid turning on your microwave and dryer at the same time).  We're fortunate to live in an area where there are at least two hardware stores that carry them.  They are also available online.

In an upcoming post:  I reveal our discovery of the fourth "sub-panel."