How to dismantle kitchen cabinets with electrical switchboard inside?

[Henski]

Hi, I’m in the process of dismantling my old kitchen cabinets and to have an installer planned to put the new kitchen in.

To save $’s, I’m toying with idea of dismantling and disposing the old kitchen myself.

Issue is, the electrical switchboard is on the inside of my kitchen cupboard.

How can I demo the kitchen if I cant touch that cabinet? Seems straight-forward to dismantle all the other cabinets but can’t see how I can touch that cabinet? Any ideas?

Pic:

Tia

[Jason]

Please don't do anything that would compromise your safety @Henski. I would be engaging the services of a registered electrician before proceeding. 

Let me tag helpful experts @CSParnell and @MikeTNZ for their thoughts. 

Jason

[CSParnell]

Hi @Henski 

There is no other way to safey reply to this thread than to advise you to engage an electrical contractor.

Being a licensed electrician myself I can tell you there is nothing more dangerous to yourself or others than electricity. Even us licensed electricians get it wrong with catastrophic consequences.

Please do not think or take advice from mate its easy you just do "X" engage a licensed electrical contractor.

Carl.

[MitchellMc]

Hi @Henski,

It's great to see you've already received excellent advice from the knowledgeable @CSParnell.

Unfortunately, there is no other option here than to engage the services of a qualified electrician. Please don't risk your safety or the safety of those around you by attempting any work yourself.

Mitchell

[MikeTNZ]

It looks like someone "cheaped out" a rewire and ended up putting a small sub-board in to take into account the load of the kitchen.

It's anyone's guess what is in that mystery box, could be a big joint, could be some circuit breakers, if you're lucky.

Only a qualified Electrician should open that up.

All of the cables (and possibly circuit protection) that go into that box are going to have to be re-located elsewhere after the cabinets are removed.

It may even mean the whole thing gets rewired, joining cables in walls is not done unless they are done properly.

[CSParnell]

Hey @Henski how did you go with this mate? 

We're you able to have it removed at all by a sparky so you could change the cabinet out?

Carl

[Henski]

Yes all good tx, the kitchen installer arranged a sparkie to reinstall it, just needed a new circuit for the hotplate hob the sparkie put in, rest of circuits were ok was advised

[CSParnell]

Great stuff @Henski glad you got it all sorted out, post up the completed photos of your kitchen se we can see if you want.

Carl

[Henski]