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

The panel in this Vancouver home was inside the laundry closet, behind the dryer. We moved it out of the house completely and put a 200-amp Siemens meter main on the outside wall, with a new mast, new grounding, surge protection, and every circuit carried out to the new panel.

Why we moved the panel outside

A panel in a laundry closet is hard to get to, sits in lint and moisture, and has no room to work in front of it. Moving it outside to a meter main fixes all three:

• Room to work. Code wants clear space in front of a panel. A closet with a washer and dryer in it doesn’t have any.
• Meter and breakers in one box. A meter main puts the meter, the main breaker and the circuit breakers in one weatherproof cabinet.
• An emergency shutoff outside. The 2023 NEC requires one on new services (NEC 230.85). With a meter main, the main breaker outside is that shutoff, and it’s labeled so firefighters can find it.

We include that outside shutoff on every service upgrade now, and it’s one reason moving a panel outside can be simpler than rebuilding it where it is.

Extending every circuit

The hard part of moving a panel is getting all the old circuits to the new spot. We picked them up in the attic and the laundry wall, spliced them in junction boxes you can still get to, and ran them out to the new panel.

We labeled every circuit on the new directory before the cover went back on. When you move a panel, the labels matter even more, because the old ones were taped to a panel that’s gone.

Swap day

Clark Public Utilities shut off the power at 8 in the morning, and the house was back on the new panel the same day. We also put in:

1. A new mast and weatherhead for the overhead line, strapped to the wall above the meter main.
2. A new ground wire run down the siding to the ground rod.
3. A whole-house surge protector on the bus. Our post on whether surge protection is worth it explains what it does.

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