Adding some tile to improve appearance at electric panel

10/9/2019 Davis, CA

I got tired of looking at the raw brick at the bottom of the electric panel.  We added more solar panels about eighteen months ago.  Doing that required that we install a new electric panel.  It had to be bigger to accommodate the additional inverter which takes the DC energy created by the solar panels and changes it into AC energy which can be fed back into the grid.  To enable the electricians to install the new panel I had to break out a larger opening in our brick siding.  When they were done I bricked up to the new panel and done…almost.

Here’s what was bugging me.

Come on, we can do better than this.  I have many tiles from two tiled gates that were at the river house when we bought it.  I will use some of them to cover these hollow core bricks.

Like these, for instance,

Of course, they will have to be cut to fit the proposed area,

I thought I could do it with a dremel tool but it was not up to the job.  The tiles are harder than I expected.  I bought the masonry blades for a skil saw that you see in the picture.  Even they cut very slowly and required quite a lot of pressure.

Finally though we get what we want,

Now we glue them down and add some mortar in place of grout,

Then clean up the job and voila, beautifying America.

I’ll put this in my resume.