A couple of days after a home inspection, I met the electrician at the property. As soon as we rounded the corner to the meter and panel, he started laughing. I think he laughed for ten minutes.
OK I’ll bite, what was he laughing about?
I like the interior panel installed on the exterior of the home.
Maybe I should add that this is a 1258-SF house, with 100 amps service.
Ok. The NEC has had a 100 amp minimum service size for many years. Are you saying you think it needs more?
I recently talked to an electrical contractor and he was at a electrical conference.
He said they talked as if we can expect more 100 amp services and less 200 amp services in the future .
Continuing improvements in the equipment loads is reducing the need for large services.
Are you not bothering to look at the picture?
I think that the electrician that installed this really missed his true calling as an abstract artist. Once you look at this for a moment it is really hard to tear your eyes away.
The number of breakers has nothing to due with the actual load. The conductors feeding the disconnect can’t be all that large. The carflex looks like 1", if even that.
I suspect the disconnect was installed to make up for the lack of a main breaker.
I believe that functionality is not the issue here but rather the aesthetics of the overall installation.
If I did this to the side of your home would you be pleased or would you send me packing?
I agree it could have been done better. I thought HI’s were concerned with safety issues, not looks.
Notice that the title is about an electrician laughing?
I would have been shaking my head, not laughing. That pic is a sad commentary for someone I had hoped could have and would have done a nicer install instead of that crap.
Did he run from the meter, to the disconnect, to the panel, back to the meter and then out to a subpanel/disconnect below the meter to power a receptacle?
Ok. I am an Electrician and here is why I snickered. I know that this installation cost the Electrical Contractor and homeowner way more money than it would have cost me to do the same installation. The use of ALOT of product makes me happy for my members. However, I laugh because it’s way more extensive than it really needed to be to achieve the same results.
So that’s why I found it laughable.
Sorry, I don’t find ignorance to be a laughing matter.
Never have seen a meter head that small before.
Well you call it ignorance I call it educationally challenged. What I find humorous you may find humilious. ( um, that’s not a real word). But regardless of that I found it funny in my way of thinking and I am nearly 100% sure what I find laughable is not what others may find laughable. Yes, I am sure I’m the weird one but alas I’m honest about it.
Maybe this is a situation where you “laugh to keep from crying” over the ignorance. 
How long with all that uni-strut stay pretty?
Maybe its in the desert.