- [Instructor] How many times do you go to your fuse panel,
open it up, try to read this messed up chart here
and you're going, man, this doesn't line up.
Stuff doesn't look right, I got handwritten stuff here,
scribbled stuff over here, what do I do?
Well, today we're gonna show you the proper way
to map out your fuse panel here
and make a nice little chart to put on here
using Excel.
All right, so getting started you can see, you know,
this old chart just has so much redundant information
like general light here, general light here,
well, which one is that?
That doesn't tell you anything, does it?
Then over time we've come in as we were doing the project
and we added stuff in here that we found
and added them to here as well,
you know, things like this.
We know there's no longer a wall unit,
so this whole thing has to be redone.
So what we do is, the first thing you've gotta do
is you want to measure here
because, whatever this distance is,
we're gonna put a plastic sheet protector here
and then we're gonna print a new chart
and the chart's gonna hang in there, okay?
So you need to know how much this area is
and then later, when we go to print that chart,
and what you have to remember is
when you're printing out in Excel,
and we'll show you this later on the computer,
when you print out you have to scale it down
and it'll be trial and error.
You'll have to print out a couple of times
until you get it to the right size,
but I try to print it out
so that it fits the maximum amount horizontally here
to still be able to slide down into the sheet protector.
All right, so where to begin?
Well, you know I'm very methodical
about these kind of things
and there's patterns in life
and there's patterns here in your fuse panel as well.
So if you look here, you'll notice
there's 12 slots going down here, okay,
and it's the same amount on this side
even though there's fewer switches,
but some switches take up multiple slots.
So if you start with that,
your greatest common denominator here, and what I did,
you can see, I started a chart here
where I got 12 lines on the right
and then the same amount on the left,
knowing that some of these switches take up multiples.
So, for example, this first one over here,
this is a double pole here,
this takes up four switches,
one, two, three, four, see?
So it's very easy to mark him off on there,
so that's what I do first is I go on
and I make a thicker border around the switches
that I know are bigger or are doubles or quadruples
like all these other ones you see.
They're usually your major appliances,
so whenever you see the 50 there, that's a dead giveaway.
That one's going to be your electric range, your oven,
so you can see I've got it right there as the oven.
We've tested it, too, so we already know
and same thing with right here,
if you look closely here at this other one right here,
this is your hot water heater
because you got two of the 20s tied together here,
so right down here we put the water heater
and it takes up two slots and same thing over here
with the other double 20s, which was right here,
right below it.
That was the water heater right there.
This one right here we've tested and we already know
that that's the outside air compressor
for our air conditioner that's sitting outside,
just outside our patio,
so these are kind of like your free spots
when you're playing bingo, right?
Then if you look at the very bottom on the left,
there's an unused slot opposite the switch
that's on the right, so we're going to put that as unused.
So you can see we've already rapidly started filling up
our chart here,
and then as we come over here to this one here
we've already tested, we know what this one is.
This is our air handler 'cause it's got the 30s on there,
the dipole, the two 30s.
All right, so, and we've indicated that here.
Remember it takes up two slots, also.
Then below that one we know we have the washing machine
and the small appliances,
we're gonna go and just double check that.
But see below that one here is this other one here
that's got the two 20s here, that goes to your dryer,
so we're gonna mark that off as the dryer.
Now all the rest of these that are open now
we have to go and figure out what they are,
so how do we do that?
Well, it's a process of elimination and it goes a lot better
when you have your buddy working with you,
even one or two people is better
'cause somebody can be over on the other side of the house
yelling, "Yeah, that works!"
So one useful tool I use
is one of these outlet checkers here
and I usually just plug it into the outlet
and both the LEDs come on when the outlet is working,
so you can just flip off the panel switch
over on your electrical panel
and, if you see the light go off,
then you know that that switch is controlling this outlet.
Okay, so let's go ahead and try that.
So this right here is the switch that we think is doing it,
so let's see if it has an effect on that.
(switch clicking) Yep, so you can see
the lights have gone off on it.
So let's go back now and switch the switch back on
and make sure.
Okay, we're gonna flip the switch now.
(switch clicking)
See how the lights came back on?
So we've confirmed
that that switch is controlling
at least this outlet here.
But you need to check the other ones,
because this could be on a separate circuit.
So we've seen before in kitchens
where your counter outlets can all be
on a separate circuit.
All right, so this time I've moved it
other to the right side of the stove, let's do the switch.
(switch clicking) Yep.
So they're on the same circuit
and, continuing around the house in the same fashion,
we test all of the other outlets and lights
and we complete our map.
So there we are, all complete.
We're gonna take this back
and get it in front of the computer and enter it into Excel
where it will be nice and perfect.
You can always edit it at a future date, too,
if something changes or you find a mistake.
Okay, so here's our printout here,
and so let's just quickly review what we've done here.
I kind of do things in somewhat of a color code.
So as you can see here anything that's hot or generates heat
I usually put in red, so up here you can see
here's where we've got the electric range,
and then the hot water heater is here,
and the microwave oven is here,
and the washing machine over here,
and then the clothes dryer is there, okay?
You can see there was 12 slots
and usually they do 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, all the way down.
They usually do one side even and the other side odd.
You can do it whichever way you want.
I tend to follow the convention that's engraved
onto the metal panel right next to where the switches are.
So, yeah, so the red is hot there
and likewise anything that's cool like air conditioning
is gonna be blue right here.
So here's the A/C compressor that goes outside the condo
and here's the air handler
and then the other blue here's the refrigerator.
I usually make that a different shade
because I try to have adjacent cells be a different color
from one another, okay?
And, let's see, the garbage disposal and the dishwasher,
I left them the same color
because they're on the same outlet box,
so, in this case here,
the garbage disposal's on the upper outlet
and the dishwasher was on the lower outlet.
Then anything that's yellow is usually lights,
you know, 'cause light's yellow,
so lights and electric outlets I put them yellow.
So they're easy to find, so when you open the box,
your eye is immediately directed to where it needs to be
and this makes the most logical sense for me.
So I come up with this system a few years ago
and I've been using it ever since.
Then here at the bottom I have the GFI outlets
for the master and the guest bathrooms.
They're both controlled by this one circuit.
I usually outline it in red to kind of indicate it
that it's a GFI.
Usually the GFI outlets will often have a red button
on them, so I just kind of use that.
This gray one here, of course, is unused.
So that pretty much covers what's happening on here.
Now you'll notice, too, see here,
well here all of the lights are on this one,
but on this one over here you'll see it says
master bedroom lights and two outlets
and the family room east outlets,
so there's three outlets
on the east wall of the family room.
So sometimes in condos, where they have limited space
and stuff and they make small panels,
they'll often mix the electrical outlets
with the lighting.
So they'll sometimes be on the same circuit.
I'm not a big fan of that because I have always felt
that, you know, that can cause like flickering of the lights
if you have certain noisy machinery or something
that you're operating or an appliance,
you know, things like that.
Then, you don't really know, well,
what kind of wiring did they put in the wall?
Typically for outlets you'll want 12-gauge wiring, maybe,
if you're gonna use 20-amp, who knows?
And then 14-gauge for lighting,
so, you know, that's sort of the way
they've always done it here in condos
is they'll mix and match sometimes on here.
Here's another one here, too, see the master bedroom,
the other three outlets of the master bedroom
along with both of the bathroom lights
are all on one circuit.
Then in the kitchen you just have two little outlets
on a wall in the kitchen here near the floor
and they're on their own circuit, so, go figure.
So let's cut this out and get it installed.
And now here it is in place on your electrical panel box
and this will make it a lot easier for you
'cause now it's computer typed,
which is a lot easier to read
than somebody's, you know, bad handwriting
and scrawling and doesn't make sense
and it tells you where everything is at a glance.
So this, folks, is how you perfectly map out
your electrical panel.