Two Panels Swapped in a Day in Vancouver, WA, Including an ITE Pushmatic

This Vancouver home had two old panels, one in the garage and one in the hallway. We replaced both on the same visit, so the family only lost power once.

What a Pushmatic is

The garage panel had a blue ITE Pushmatic badge. You’ll know one when you open the door. Instead of a switch, each breaker is a push button. You push it to shut it off and push it again to turn it back on.

They were common in older homes and haven’t been made in decades. That causes a few problems:

• Breakers are hard to find, and what’s out there is used or old stock at high prices
• The buttons get stiff with age, and a stiff breaker is one you can’t count on to trip
• There’s no AFCI or GFCI breaker made for them, so you can’t add modern protection without changing the panel
• It’s hard to tell at a glance whether a breaker is on or off

A Pushmatic isn’t necessarily failing today. But there’s no way to upgrade anything in the house without going through it. That’s why we usually recommend replacing an old panel instead of working around it. Our guide on when an old panel has to go covers the other signs.

Why we did both panels at once

When a house is split across two panels, the circuits are tied together. There are feeders between them, sometimes shared neutrals from older work, and each panel’s labels only make sense next to the other one.

Doing both together means:

1. One power outage instead of two.
2. We trace circuits across both panels while everything’s open.
3. The labels match at the end, because we wrote them at the same time.

The typed directory

The new hallway panel got a typed directory and a surge protector on the bus, with its status light showing through the cover.

The directory is the part you’ll actually use. Every electrician, inspector and appliance installer after us starts by opening that door. A panel that’s labeled right saves an hour of tracing every time.

Got an old panel in Vancouver with push-button breakers, fuses, or a brand nobody stocks? Call 360-828-7143 or get both panels quoted at once.