Laundry-Closet Panel Moved Outside to a 200-Amp Meter Main in Vancouver, WA

The electrical panel in this Vancouver home lived inside the laundry closet, behind the dryer. Newman Electric took it out of the house entirely and put a 200-amp Siemens meter main on the outside wall, with a new mast, new grounding, surge protection, and every existing circuit carried out to the new panel.

Why the panel moved outside

A panel in a laundry closet is hard to reach, sits next to lint and moisture, and leaves no working room in front of it. Moving the service to an outdoor combination meter main fixes all three at once:

• Working space. The NEC wants clear space in front of a panel. A closet with a washer and dryer in it does not have any.
• One enclosure for meter and breakers. A NEMA 3R meter main puts the meter, the main breaker and the branch breakers in a single weather-rated cabinet.
• An emergency disconnect outside. The 2023 NEC requires one on new services (NEC 230.85). With a meter main, the main breaker outside is that disconnect, and it’s labeled so first responders can find it.

That last point is now part of every service upgrade we do, and it’s one reason relocating a service outside is often simpler than rebuilding it in place.

Extending every circuit

The hard part of a relocation is getting the existing circuits to the new location. Here the branch circuits were picked up in the attic and laundry wall, spliced in accessible junction boxes, and extended to the new exterior panel.

Every circuit went onto the new directory by hand before the cover went back on. On a relocation the directory matters even more than usual, because the old one was taped to a panel that no longer exists.

The day of the swap

Clark Public Utilities disconnected the service at 8 in the morning, and the house was back on the new panel the same day. Along the way:

1. New mast and weatherhead for the overhead drop, strapped to the wall above the meter main.
2. New grounding electrode conductor run down the siding to the ground rod.
3. Whole-house surge protector landed on the bus, which our post on whether surge protection is worth it explains in detail.

If your panel is buried in a closet, a hallway or a bedroom wall, see our panel upgrades in Vancouver, WA section for how we handle city permits, or call 360-828-7143 and ask whether yours can move outside.