Walk into any electrical room in an Arkansas manufacturing plant, commercial building, or agricultural facility. You’ll find switchboards and panelboards distributing power throughout the operation. These unassuming metal enclosures house the circuit breakers, buses, and connections that divide incoming electrical power into separate circuits serving different areas and equipment. They may look simple from the outside—just rows of breakers behind closed door. What’s happening inside these panels is critical to your business operations. NFPA 70B recognizes this by establishing maintenance practices designed to keep these essential distribution points operating safely and reliably.
The challenge with switchboards and panelboards is that problems develop silently over years of service. Connections gradually loosen from thermal cycling as electrical loads vary throughout the day. Bus bars and connections can overheat from poor contact or excessive loading. Insulation slowly deteriorates from heat, moisture, and time. All of these issues progress invisibly behind closed panel doors until the day something fails, often causing disruption far beyond the immediate problem. For businesses across eastern and central Arkansas, understanding proper switchboard and panelboard maintenance based on NFPA 70B standards helps prevent these unexpected failures and extends the life of critical electrical infrastructure.
Infrared Thermography: Seeing Heat Before It Causes Problems
One of the most valuable maintenance tools for switchboards and panelboards is infrared thermography. IR allows technicians to see heat patterns in electrical equipment. NFPA 70B recommends annual infrared scanning of bus connections, breaker connections, and other current-carrying components to identify hot spots that indicate developing problems. This technology has revolutionized electrical maintenance. It makes it possible to detect issues before they cause failures, all while equipment remains energized and operational.
Hot spots in electrical distribution equipment almost always indicate problems that will worsen over time. A connection that’s running 20 or 30 degrees hotter than similar connections nearby is telling you something is wrong. Perhaps the connection is loose, corroded, or improperly sized for the current it’s carrying. Left unaddressed, that hot spot will get progressively hotter, accelerating deterioration until eventually the connection fails or creates an arc flash hazard. Annual infrared scanning catches these problems in their early stages when repairs are straightforward and can be scheduled during convenient maintenance windows.
The beauty of infrared thermography lies in its non-invasive nature and immediate results. Technicians can scan panels while your facility operates normally, identifying problems without interrupting production or business operations. The thermal images provide clear visual evidence of problem areas, making it easy to prioritize repairs based on severity. For Arkansas businesses where summer heat already stresses electrical systems, infrared scanning becomes even more valuable by identifying connections that may be operating at or near their thermal limits during peak cooling loads.
Torque Verification and Connection Inspection: Tightening the Links
Infrared thermography detects overheating connections. Torque verification and physical inspection fix improper tightness, a common issue. NFPA 70B recommends offline functional testing annually or every three years. Proper connection torque ensures reliable electrical distribution. Equipment must be de-energized for safe inspection.
Electrical connections rely on proper contact pressure to conduct current efficiently. When connections are too loose, the reduced contact area creates resistance that causes heating. Over time, thermal cycling causes connections to loosen further through a process called thermal ratcheting—the connection heats up and expands, then cools and contracts slightly loose, gradually becoming looser with each heating cycle. Torque verification using calibrated tools ensures that all bolted connections meet manufacturer specifications for proper contact pressure.
The inspection process includes visual examination of all accessible connections, bus bars, lugs, and hardware for signs of overheating, corrosion, or mechanical damage. Discoloration of bus bars or conductors, melted insulation, or deformed hardware all indicate problems that require correction. Arkansas’s humid climate makes corrosion of electrical connections a particular concern, as oxidation of copper or aluminum bus bars can increase resistance and cause heating even when connections are properly torqued.
Maintenance verifies existing connections and ensures proper installation of circuit modifications, load additions, or panel changes. Facilities often make incremental electrical distribution changes. Periodic comprehensive inspections confirm these changes maintain panel integrity and safety.
Insulation Resistance Testing: Measuring Electrical Integrity
Insulation resistance testing gives quantitative data on switchboard and panelboard insulation condition. Visual inspection or infrared scanning can’t assess this. NFPA 70B recommends testing every three years for critical applications. Typical installations require testing every five years. It measures insulation resistance between conductors and ground or between phases.
Technicians apply high DC voltage, typically 1,000 volts, to 600-volt equipment, measuring current flow between conductors and ground. Healthy insulation shows high resistance, in megohms or gigohms. Deteriorated insulation has lower resistance values. Testing reveals issues like moisture, aging, tracking, or contamination. These problems can compromise panel safety.
Environmental factors significantly affect insulation condition in switchboards and panelboards. Dust accumulation, chemical vapors, moisture infiltration, and temperature extremes all accelerate insulation deterioration. In Arkansas’s industrial and agricultural facilities, where harsh conditions like high humidity, dust, and chemical exposure affect panels, insulation resistance testing plays a critical role in detecting deterioration early to prevent failures and ensure safety.
Conduct testing during planned outages when technicians can safely de-energize and isolate panels. Compare results to manufacturer specifications, industry standards, and prior test results to identify trends. Gradually declining insulation resistance over multiple tests indicates deteriorating conditions that may eventually require panel cleaning, component replacement, or even complete panel replacement depending on severity.
The Arkansas Context: Environmental Challenges
Operating electrical distribution equipment in Arkansas presents specific environmental challenges that affect maintenance requirements and equipment longevity. The state’s humid subtropical climate, combined with the diverse industrial, commercial, and agricultural applications common throughout eastern and central Arkansas, creates conditions that demand attention to environmental protection and regular maintenance.
High humidity levels promote corrosion of bus bars and electrical connections, particularly in panels that aren’t in climate-controlled environments. Outdoor panels, those in non-air-conditioned buildings, or equipment in agricultural facilities face particular challenges from moisture. This makes both infrared scanning and physical inspection especially important for identifying corrosion problems before they compromise electrical connections. Proper panel sealing and gaskets help protect against moisture infiltration, but these protective measures require periodic inspection and maintenance themselves.
Dust and contamination in industrial and agricultural environments pose additional challenges. Grain dust in agricultural facilities, manufacturing residues, or general dirt and debris can accumulate on bus bars and connections, creating tracking paths that can lead to flashovers or ground faults. Regular panel cleaning during maintenance outages removes these contaminants and extends equipment life. The frequency of cleaning depends on environmental conditions, with dusty or contaminated environments requiring more attention than clean commercial installations.
Planning for Reliable Distribution
Developing an effective maintenance program for your switchboards and panelboards requires balancing NFPA 70B recommendations with your specific operational needs, equipment criticality, and budget realities. Main distribution panels serving entire facilities deserve more frequent and comprehensive attention than sub-panels serving non-critical loads. Equipment age, operating environment, and historical performance all factor into determining appropriate maintenance intervals.
The coordination between different maintenance activities maximizes efficiency and minimizes operational disruption. Annual infrared scanning allows equipment to operate normally during monitoring, enabling year-round oversight without downtime. During planned maintenance outages, technicians can conduct physical inspections, torque verification, and insulation resistance testing together, completing multiple tasks in a single downtime period. This coordinated approach reduces the total number of outages required while ensuring comprehensive equipment evaluation.
Documentation of all maintenance activities, test results, and findings creates a valuable historical record that helps optimize future maintenance. Tracking which connections required torque adjustment, where hot spots have been identified, and how insulation resistance values trend over time provides insights that improve maintenance efficiency and reliability. This information also proves valuable when making decisions about equipment replacement or upgrades as systems age.
This blog post was created by Ag Electric Services, LLC, an Arkansas based electrical and general contractor serving the following areas of Central and Eastern Arkansas: McCrory, Augusta, Newport, Wynne, Brinkley, Des Arc, Forrest City, Hickory Ridge, Cherry Valley, Tuckerman, Jonesboro, Searcy, Pangburn, Heber Springs, Greers Ferry, Rosebud, Quitman, Romance, Kensett, Georgetown, Cabot, Beebe, El Paso, Hickory Plains, Carlisle, Lonoke, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville, Maumelle, Conway, Mayflower, Vilonia. If you would like more information about the services we provide, please click “Services” in the main menu, or contact us through the online information request form on the “Contact Us” page.