electricians....or those who play them on TV...i have a code question

I am not an electrician but my buddy is. His opinion is that it would pass code to mount the breaker box between two doors as you describe with the caveat he does not know all the code requirements for your area.

I'm not an electrician, I don't play one on TV, but I do work with electricians, codes, and the interpretation of the latter by the former. That said, the best resource would probably be an anonymous phone call to the electrical inspector in the building inspection department for your locale, as they are the ones who really matter when it comes to getting something green-tagged. So there's your cheap advice and disclaimer.

I hate to rain on your parade, but looking at NEC Section 110.26 (http://freenec.com/T13.html) for the requirements, I think you run into trouble at  110.26(F)(1)(a):

Dedicated Electrical Space. The space equal to the width and depth of the equipment and extending from the floor to a height of 1.8 m (6 ft) above the equipment or to the structural ceiling, whichever is lower, shall be dedicated to the electrical installation. No piping, ducts, leak protection apparatus, or other equipment foreign to the electrical installation shall be located in this zone.

It would seem to me that the door, door jamb, hinges, etc. could be considered "equipment foreign to the electrical installation" (particularly if the inspector wants to be a hardass), since those would be within the required width of the working space. That said, I'm taking a pretty conservative view of this whole thing because I'd hate to see you do a bunch of work and then get it bounced because it's a close call.

Additionally, in that installation location, it might be difficult for you to run the wires into the sides of the electrical panel cabinet and make the wire turn radius at the prescribed minimum, depending on the width of the electrical panel cabinet. At the very least, putting the panel in that location will wind up being a huge PITA for installation.

Sorry buddy.

Not in OK...but both OKC and Tulsa got upity when they got running water.  They decided to learn to read, wear shoes and it was all downhill from there.

To the OP, you are likely to get dinged on it in a pre-sale inspection even if it meets the letter of the NEC for whatever year adopted by your municipality.  If either of the doors open such that they will cover the panel, I am almost sure it will violate one of the lesser known "asshole hit me with the door" paragraphs written by the local inspector (with a lump on his head) but never officially inducted into the written code (I jest not, the inspector does not have limit themselves tot he code).

Personally, I would do it anyway if it needs being done.  It is easier to ask forgiveness.....

For what it's worth, I hope I'm wrong. In my experience, the building inspectors can take a pretty narrow view of anything other than the then-current "standard" installation, even if it meets with both the letter and the spirit of the code. No building inspector ever lost their job by dropping a red tag on a non-standard installation.

the 1950s equipment (i'm guessing it's original to the house)

the current setup of the wall, and my grand (poorly drawn) plans:

the door on the right opens into a 3/4 bath (sink, toilet, shower stall), the door on the left opens out of a closet. the area behind the electrical panel is a linen cabinet for the bath

this collection of rooms/hallway is in the upper right of this poorly photographed floorplan:

a detail shot of that area. the black/dotted lines are the existing walls. the red is a washer/dryer stack and my first plans (blowing the door frame area out entirely and basically making a dead end hallway out of the area, no wallboard frame on the existing hallway):

right this very moment, the wall section between the door openings (not the frames or the moldings, the actual openings) is right at 30", so, by some interpretations, we are code compliant (tho one guy in town started talking about 33" wide for some reason). my plan is to widen the opening going into the closet from a 24" door frame to a 34" drywall opening, and the closet behind it from 30" wide to 40" wide. this will narrow the panelboard's wallspace to only 20". If code demands 30" of actual wallspace, i'm boned, but if code considers doors and other openings in the wall plane to be equivalent to wallspace, then i'm still good.

....and that's where the crux of the question lies.

and...just to complicate it further, i need somewhere to store my detergents and fabric softeners. I would like to access the existing cabinetry that's in the bathroom behind the panelboard thru a new pair of cabinet doors in the hallway, under the panel box. construction-wise, the panelboard and the cabinet access would live in the same 16" chase, all of the electrical runs would run through the top of the panelboard. the light switch would go across the hall, and the receptacle would go away.  the picture doesn't reflect it, but i found that the panel board and the cabinet would be the same basic width, because there is only so much room to cram 14.25" of panel board, and 2.5" of bathroom door molding in 20" of properly framed wall.

if i can't hang a cabinet door in the chase below the panelboard (due to the non-electrical items part of the code), i'll end up having to make the deadend hall and store the stuff next to the stack. while possibly more functional, it doesn't really fit the style of the house.

so....clear as mud?

the big giant room is the garage.

the overhead wire comes from the pole in the alley behind the house to the extreme upper right corner of the floor plan; where the scale is listed.

the current location of the panel is between the doors on the right side of the hallway between the numbers 2 and 3.

the attic is accessible from the garage, and allows you to breathe piles of pink fluff while you access nearly every corner of the house's ceiling.

there is a meter and an outdoor box with a handful of larger breakers on the outside of the house, upper right corner of the floorplans.

none of the outlets in the house have ground terminals.

based on my initial assumption that the panelboard had to be mounted in 30" of actual wall, and knowing that there was barely 30" of wall there now, the electrician suggested moving the box across the hall from where it is now (onto the left wall of the hallway between 2 and 3). this is a blank wall that backs up to the kitchen (on the other side of the wall where the 67 is in the kitchen). from there, you are correct in the assumption of putting a jumper box in the attic above the old board location and running everything across the hall ceiling to the new board location.

a new pic...
X marks the panel's current location (right wall of the hallway between the closet and bathroom doors)
the arrow points to where the electrician suggested moving it after i told him that i didn't have 33" (his figure) between the doors at the current location.

just so i can be clear, you are suggesting putting all the breakers for the house outside, and running the individual circuits from there to a junction box using the original main feed conduit (assuming that conduit can hold all those circuits).

i hadn't even thought of that. I've wanted to step up the amperage while i'm in all this, and running the larger wire from the outside in was threatening expensive. making that same basic run with a couple dozen smaller wires seems like a good trade off. on the other hand, the current feed (those three white wires coming in on the left top of the box) is in a smallish conduit, so i'll be unlikely to run the wires for the 13 existing circuits thru it.  junction box in the attic solves the wall problem entirely, but may not solve the main feed conduit in the attic.

guess i need to brave the insulation.

Yes...plus you can possibly utilize the conduit or chase that that fed the outside breakers from the panel in the house since those breakers are at the point of origin now...instead of wire in and wire out, there is just wire out.

So I envision a 20+ space main breaker panel outside where the smaller main lug (most likely) panel is now.  A new main service goes from the existing meter to this exterior panel (6 ' of 2 gauge copper is cheap...2' per conductor...as is the offset rigid conduit chunk and calling the power company to drop the service for a day is FREE).  You now have two open conduits to the existing main breaker panel...the service to the breaker panel and the feeds to the outdoor panel from the main panel.  If you are lucky, this means the old panel can become the junction box.

As far as conduit fill, you will be shocked how much you can run through a (likely) 1.5" conduit that used to be the service.  If you are running 12 gauge (which you should but cannot if the existing is 14 gauge) we are talking 50 strands if there are less than 180 degrees of bends...that is 25 ungrounded circuits.  Since you likely have exactly 180 degrees of bend and might not have a pull elbow in the conduit...I would reduce it to 40 wires with LOTS OF LUBE...it still will be tough.  If you choose to terminate in the attic, you likely will have 90 degrees of bend and I would pull enough for your current and ALLLLLLLLL future needs so enough to fill the box plus an extra 6 strands (two white, two ground, one red, one black).  If you want, do a hybrid where the existing circuits go to the old main panel through the service conduit and new circuits go to an attic junction box via the old conduit to the exterior panel.

1" conduit is almost as good...20-22 strands for under 180 degrees bend.

Since you are busting up drywall anyway, consider replacing whatever the existing conduit is with something big and plastic...I suggest 2".  If you are doing the drywall work yourself, just means a little more mudding and probably the scraps from the drywall you are off cutting.  If you are paying to have it done (if you can find a reliable, skilled mudder DO IT no matter the price) the price difference will be about a case of decent beer.  If the conduit runs exterior to the house until it enters the attic....even better because you only bust up drywall where it goes from the ceiling to the existing panel.

Call me if you want (219-730-1688)  Some of this is easier to explain if I can ask questions while you walk around looking at stuff for me.  I got off work early today and just tapped a new homebrew mini-keg with the wife and roommate are out of town so don't expect too much of me after about 7 PM tonight (or ever to be honest).  I love working on old houses and actually got my journeyman cert so I could legally do my own wiring in OK (not in Indiana, though) so I am  more of an old house remodel guru who can wire than a real electrician.