ITE Pushmatic - Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum

crazymurph · 10-16-2009, 05:57 PM

What is everyones opinion of the "BullDog" panels. I have a customer who has one in her home that was built in the late 60's. I have only dealt with pushmatics a few times and see no problem. They are one of the few residential panels that have bolt on breakers.

Kevin J · 10-16-2009, 06:53 PM

There's a lot of them around here in some of the older houses, and I think personally, they are bulletproof. Seems like a good design, and seems to last.

NolaTigaBait · 10-16-2009, 06:58 PM

I have the old one that I ripped out of a customers house. It seemed very well built.

480sparky · 10-16-2009, 07:52 PM

I have no real problems with them other than they usually are over-filled to begin with, so I suggest replacing them. That, and new breakers that are made for them are quite pricey.

seo · 10-16-2009, 09:10 PM

The neutral bar could have been designed with more spaces. Cross threading the screw that bolts the breaker to the buss and the tell tale sign of burn marks where someones screwdriver slipped and hit the buss and the enclosure when installing breakers were common problems. Pushamatics are a good panel with few problems but as 480sparky said the breakers are expensive.

crazymurph · 10-17-2009, 01:21 AM

Thanks to all that have replied. My friend is a recent widow and may be selling the house. My concern is with a home inspector who may be looking at the house for the future buyer.

TOOL_5150 · 10-17-2009, 01:55 AM

the breakers lack a magnetic trip mechanism.

~matt

SDinspector · 10-17-2009, 11:38 AM

Be carefull removing opening these panels. It is easy to contact the buss with the top of the dead front. Also, we see many with no main breaker, or breakers installed above the main (due to lack of space). Do not assume that the power is off to all circuits because the main is in off position. Always stick them.

Bob Badger · 10-17-2009, 12:01 PM

I would tell the customer that the panel has reached the end of its useful life.

As has been mentioned it is probably already over filled, new parts hard to come by, lack of instantaneous trip, small enclosure etc.

Just for grins, here is some 3 phase pushmatic switch gear.

Podagrower · 10-17-2009, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazymurph

Thanks to all that have replied. My friend is a recent widow and may be selling the house. My concern is with a home inspector who may be looking at the house for the future buyer.

Unfortunately, there are good home inspectors, and not-so-good home inspectors. I have seen panels near the end of their "Rated Life" noted in inspection reports, but never listed as a deficiency. Old panels with 2 wire romex (especially if outlets are 3 prong), panels fed with 2 hots and a ground, lack of GFCI protection, incomplete/missing grounding are the most common items for correction in my area.

bobelectric · 11-02-2009, 05:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Podagrower

Unfortunately, there are good home inspectors, and not-so-good home inspectors. I have seen panels near the end of their "Rated Life" noted in inspection reports, but never listed as a deficiency. Old panels with 2 wire romex (especially if outlets are 3 prong), panels fed with 2 hots and a ground, lack of GFCI protection, incomplete/missing grounding are the most common items for correction in my area.

30 and out,I guess.

Greenblinker · 11-02-2009, 10:25 PM

Personally I have had only bad experiences with these panels. More often than not I have trouble with the breakers such as not resetting correctly or visually saying they are off and still passing power through. I also have alot of trouble turning off the breakers and getting them to come back on reliably. Hopefully someone can verify this, but I was told from my supplier that Siemans was making the replacements and they are not UL listed.

Black4Truck · 11-02-2009, 10:30 PM

Only thing pushamatic has that I like are the blanks that take the space of a breaker

They never fall out

RMatthis · 11-10-2009, 04:47 PM

If you are selling the house, leave it. As long as there are no other violations in the panel, the inspector shouldn't have a problem with them.
If it was in my house or a customer who want's the best...
Change out the panel. The ITE "bulldogs" in my opinion are unreliable and sometimes will MELT before they trip.
They where popular in there day but have proven to be unreliable.

That's just my experiance with them though.