Switchgear vs Switchboard: What You Have

The short version

Switchgear is built to a standard that assumes the breakers are drawout and individually compartmented. Switchboards are built to a lighter standard, usually with fixed-mount or plug-in breakers in a common enclosure. Panelboards are smaller still, designed for branch circuit distribution rather than service entrance duty.

In value terms the order is generally the same: true drawout switchgear at the top, switchboards in the middle, panelboards at the bottom on a per-unit basis. But a 4000A switchboard is worth far more than a 600A switchgear lineup, so the rating always outranks the category.

How to tell switchgear from a switchboard by looking

Open a door. If each breaker sits in its own steel compartment with a shutter or barrier separating it from the bus, and the breaker can be racked out on rails, you have switchgear. If several breakers share an open interior space and are bolted or plugged onto the bus, you have a switchboard.

Front access is another clue. Switchgear is usually front-and-rear accessible and is designed to be pulled away from the wall. Many switchboards are front-accessible only and sit flush against it.

Where panelboards fit

A panelboard is what most people picture as an electrical panel: a flush or surface cabinet with a column of branch breakers behind a door. They are individually inexpensive, and the value in panelboards is in volume. Forty of them out of a gutted office building is a real transaction; one of them is usually not worth a dedicated trip.

The exception is large distribution panelboards at 600A and above with mainstream breaker types. Those carry enough value individually to be worth handling on their own.

Why the distinction matters when you sell

It changes who the buyer is. Drawout switchgear goes to industrial and institutional buyers who need matching sections or breakers for an existing installation. Switchboards go into commercial reuse and to contractors. Panelboard lots go to supply houses and rebuilders.

You do not need to classify your gear correctly to sell it to us. Send photos and we will identify it. The reason to understand the difference is so that you can tell whether a quote you have been given is in the right range at all.