Leave it the low life’s to come up with a new way to vandalize homes

The little turds look for homes where the owners appear to be away for an extended period of time - not just one day, and they go to the main electrical panel and turn off the breakers

Here in AZ the panels are mounted outside the house and are seldom secured with a padlock.

Mine is padlocked, even as it's in the backyard.

Are they just doing it to be turds or are they some eco nuts trying to enforce their worldview on how much power someone else's home uses when they're temporarily away?

Suddenly I just imagined an electric pet feeder that gets shut off with the power. This kind of shite could cause pet abuse and even death. A little video surveillance later and these assholes might just wind up in the pen for something like this.

We had a neighbor in the neighborhood where their padlocked box, keeps getting cut off… not sure if there’s any better way to prevent this if they are determined and have the tools to cut even the padlocks.

That's annoying but not as bad as folks that punch a hole in a basement window and run a garden hose in...

So much easier to use a battery powered sawzall to cut a nice door in the siding of most people garage and then just wslk in the house since most people never lock their door going into their house from the garage.

Maybe step 1 in further asshattery? As in, the thugs may be thinking that with the power off, any video surveillance/burglar alarms probably will run out of batteries eventually?

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Here in AZ the panels are mounted outside the house

I see that a lot on houses in North Carolina, too. What's the reason for putting that access outdoors? Makes no day-to-day sense to me. I'm picturing having to go out in the snow, in the dark, at some inopportune time to reset a breaker...

Maybe it's so firefighters can shut down the house in an emergency? Otherwise, I don't see the reason for it. Even so, maybe access to a single shutoff from the outside and then the rest of the panel indoors seems to make more sense to me.

Mine in Houston was outside. After having to go out once in a thunderstorm, I specced the new house with the breaker panels INSIDE. Stupid way to do things putting them outside.

RMD

The first time I lived in Houston, my electrical panel was outdoors and I had a padlock on it and it was behind a locked gate. It was really easy to add the generator transfer switch, but other than that I disliked it. Really hated it when a breaker tripped after dark, in a thunderstorm, or in a hurricane. My garage was even on the same side of the house as the electrical panel and it would've been the perfect place to have an indoor electrical panel.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
What's the reason for putting that access outdoors? Makes no day-to-day sense to me.

When in doubt follow the money. Most homes these days are tract homes in suburbia so follow the money to the tract home builder.

Everyone that I've ever seen was right next to the power meter. Builder only has to use 3 or 4 feet of the expensive cable from the power meter to the panel, and doesn't have to pay an electrician to string any of the expensive cable through studs or attic. The outdoor electrical panel only costs $37 more at Home Depot when comparing Square D to Square D, and the outdoor panel doesn't change the home's sales price.

Most importantly, the builder doesn't have to live there.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:

most people never lock their door going into their house from the garage.

That would not accomplish much in my house, other than delaying the miscreant slightly. The door opens outward, toward the garage, so the hinges are on the garage side. If somebody got into the garage it would be a trivial mattrer, to remove the hinge pins from the door and walk right into the house.

We have someone cutting the power to various medical clinics in McComb, MS area. Apparently he's been convicted of this before, and was recently released. Cost an oncology clinic and some others thousands in lost medicine, plus delayed treatments.

Apparently he believes electricity is the devil's power....


On the outdoor panel, many places have made that code, including the rural county where we are building a cabin now. Apparently for fire department access. As soon as they finish work there, a padlock is going on that....

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:
So much easier to use a battery powered sawzall to cut a nice door in the siding of most people garage and then just wslk in the house since most people never lock their door going into their house from the garage.

Where did you get this statistic ?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
If somebody got into the garage it would be a trivial mattrer, to remove the hinge pins from the door and walk right into the house.

this is easily fixed with either special hinges or putting some pins in which prevent the door from being removed when closed.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
Maybe it's so firefighters can shut down the house in an emergency? Otherwise, I don't see the reason for it. Even so, maybe access to a single shutoff from the outside and then the rest of the panel indoors seems to make more sense to me.

My house was a custom build in 1972 and we have a single shutoff outside, with the main breaker panel on the other side of the wall in the garage. I would prefer everything to be inside the structure. Maybe some day I'll get to design my own custom house. I'm also

My father designed and built the house I grew up in, in 1977. No way to shut anything off from the outside.

If you must lock your panel , spend the money and buy a hardened lock . They can be cut but the average punk kid probably won't have the tools to do it .

The Terrible-Twenties are upon us, which among other things, acts of criminal pettiness & mischievousness have become much more common. Personal property crimes are not being prosecuted and if they are, its a high likelihood that the original crime will be knocked-down and minimized. The perpetrator is not getting any punitive action against them, nor any separation from society.

Remove any targets of opportunity, harden parts of your home that are necessary, to include securing outside access panels and junction boxes. My question would be how to secure an outside waterline both main-line and a spigot?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:

most people never lock their door going into their house from the garage.

That would not accomplish much in my house, other than delaying the miscreant slightly. The door opens outward, toward the garage, so the hinges are on the garage side. If somebody got into the garage it would be a trivial mattrer, to remove the hinge pins from the door and walk right into the house.

^^^^^^^^^ NRP Hinges(non-removeable hinge pins... Hinge pin can only be removed when door is opened to allow access to a set screw that must be loosened to allow pin to be removed........................................ drill sgt.

quote:

harden parts of your home

This sounds like the start of another good thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
On the outdoor panel, many places have made that code

Code, schmode, I'm not a fan of putting access to my home's systems on the outside of the home.
A master switch is one thing, maybe, but the entire panel? Nuh-uh, man.