The 4-photo site checklist
Four photographs, taken in the right places, answer service style, all three ratings, main breaker or lugs, service voltage, and whether there is a feedthrough.
Answers the Site visit question during setup.
Everything in this article can be read with the enclosure door open and every metal cover left in place. Do not remove a cover, and do not open a meter enclosure. If a number is not visible that way, it is a question for a licensed electrician, not something to go looking for.
Most stalled setups are not hard questions. They are questions nobody can answer because the person who went to site photographed the roof and came back. Four photographs fix that permanently, and they take about two minutes to take.
This is the list. Take these every time, whether or not you think the job needs them.
The four photographs
One: the meter face, square on, including any sticker on the socket. This gives you the service rating and the meter number.
Two: the enclosure next to the meter with its door open and every cover in place, showing the breaker handles or the lever, and the label. This gives you the service style and tells you whether the disconnect lives here.
Three: the main panel with its door open and every cover in place, plus the sticker on the inside of the door. The sticker carries the busbar rating and the voltage marking, and the main breaker rating is stamped on its handle. Nothing on this list needs a cover removed.
Four: any second enclosure, and the conduit run between it and the first. This is the one that reveals a feedthrough, and it is the photograph people skip.
What these four answer
Service style, service rating, busbar rating, main breaker rating or MLO, 240 or 208 volts, and feedthrough or subpanel. That is nearly the entire electrical section of a setup, gathered without a second trip.
If you can only take two, take the open service enclosure and the panel interior with its door sticker. Those two carry the most answers per photograph.
How to get the answer
Before leaving site, check each photograph on the phone and confirm you can actually read it.
- 1Can you read the sticker on the meter socket, not just see that one exists?
- 2Is the door label legible, or is it washed out by flash?
- 3Is the main breaker handle stamp readable, or is the photo too wide?
- 4On a normal house the meter is outside and the panel is in the garage, so take a photo at each end of the conduit run rather than trying to fit both in one frame.
- 5No sticker, or nothing readable? Photograph what is there anyway and record that field as unknown rather than filling it with the number you expect. An unknown you flagged is a smaller problem than a number you guessed.
What to photograph
- Meter face and socket sticker.
- Service enclosure, door open with covers in place.
- Main panel, door open with covers in place, plus door sticker.
- Second enclosure and the conduit run.
This is guidance for reading equipment that is already visible and for describing it on a drawing. It is not instruction for electrical work. Any work on service equipment, panels, or conductors is for a licensed electrician, and local code and utility rules govern.
Related guides
Every one of these questions is asked once, in setup.
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