Do you give your tenants access to the breaker panel?

Question

I have a property that about 2-3x/year, the tenants will end up blowing 1 of their breakers because they overloaded an electrical outlet.

The issue is that the circuit breaker panel is located in the garage, which I don't provide the tenants access to (I keep it for storage and cars). Last time we gave a tenant access to the garage to be able to flip their own breakers, we ended up having some equipment go missing, so not looking to give tenants access to the garage anymore.

The electrician I spoke to suggested that we move the breaker panels from the garage to inside each unit, so that the tenant can just flip their breaker back if need be, without ever having to contact me.

I'm not sure if moving the panels to inside the unit is the right move here or if that's overkill.

What's everyones stance on this?

Account Closed · Answer

Oooh, sounds exciting. . . for the electrician. Did he give you an estimate? Last upgrade from 100amp to 200amp allowed my elctrician to buy a new boat. ;-)

I'd likely put a remote electronic lock on it that I can assign a code on the fly from my phone, or have a regular lock with a spare key hidden in a secret place that gets moved every time it's used.

I personally like the idea of them being able to turn off the power in the event of a fire or an emergency and to have a couple of fire extinguishers and flash lights next to the door inside that they can grab and use if necessary.

Russell Brazil · Answer

Every state I have rentals in the its illegal to lock the tenants out from the breaker box. You sure thats legal in your state?

Chris Seveney · Answer

@John S.

Wait till you see the bill to require the home and move the panel. As others mentioned electrician will love it but your wallet will not.

It would be cheaper to partition of an area of the garage or put some type of lockers to protect your stuff and give them access to

Do you give your tenants access to the breaker panel?

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