Working in a live panel

[Vinniem]

Looking for tips when pulling wire into a live panel.

When possible I trying killing the main, but sometimes it's not possible.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[danickstr]

When possible I trying killing the man, but sometimes it's not possible.



that is what i thought it said the first time i read it, and this is always a possibility. Is it possible to allow yourself to die, but not possible to shut off power?

That being said, I have done it as well, but it is so easy to lose your focus and swing a screwdriver around in your hand and graze the main lugs, that I have often wondered why I would risk my life for such a convenience issue.

[cschmid]

I almost don't want to comment here. I use a piece of belting to cover up the mains and exposed lugs. cardboard will work as well..yet the last job I did I was able to kill the whole building it was sweet but had to use generator for lighting...

[growler]

Looking for tips when pulling wire into a live panel.

When possible I trying killing the main, but sometimes it's not possible.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.


Even though it's discouraged, we all end up working in a hot panel sooner or later. There are things to do that make the job more safe. Wear protective clothing ( gear ) and use the right tools ( fully insulated, composite material ) no metal fish tape.

This is what I like to do when cutting holes or pulling wire into a live panel. I build a barrier out of pasteboard material to keep tools or metal shavings from falling into the live area. I try to segregate the area I'm working in from the rest of the panel. Never wear a watch, rings, necklace or any sort of metalic jewelry. Make sure that you are not gounded in any way. Wear rubber soled boots and when on concrete put down a rubber mat or even some pasteboard box material ( a wood pallet ). Never get in a hurry and plan every move. :smile:

[growler]

That being said, I have done it as well, but it is so easy to lose your focus and swing a screwdriver around in your hand and graze the main lugs, that I have often wondered why I would risk my life for such a convenience issue.

Get composite tools and avoid arc flash.

[iaov]

Be deliberate!! Go slow and always watch your hands and tools. Cover up what you can (open busses) and if you don't have insulated gloves at least wear dry cotton gloves. Be deliberate and go slowly!!

[emahler]

what kind of wire? romex, MC, THHN in conduit? what size?

there are tricks for all of them...

[Vinniem]

usuallly romex and mc

[emahler]

fiberglass rods and cardboard are your friends.

[Pierre C Belarge]

In order to help some to understand that safety really is important, I am going to relate a story about my recent (2 weeks ago) panel work.

I was hired to perform some testing in a small (2-800 amp) gears. I had all of the good stuff, blankets, tools, gloves, protective equipment, etc.... The power was to stay on as the testing was for voltage and current. That is very hard to test if the power is turned off :D


Well I do the whole set up thing, and the contractor thinks I am nuts. I will not even let his electrician near the work, as he has no protective equipment.
As I am putting on my gloves, I remember to remove my wedding ring. I put it in the pocket of my Fluke tool bag.
About 3 hours later, I am finished. I am putting all of my tools away and I am now looking for my ring, of course I forgot where I left it and in a small panic have I enlisted the factory people to help me scour the floors for the "missing" ring. Finally after going over in my mind how to fabricate a story to tell my wife I lost the ring, I remembered where the ring was.
Moral of the story. Put the ring somewhere where you will remember and do not make an a$$ out of yourself. Wait, I forgot...yes, safety is that important.:wink:

[blue spark]

One thing I do when dressing a live panel is I take two lengths of NM and staple them into a loop on each side of the panel, usually on the next stud over and a little higher than the top of the panel. As I bring circuits in and strip them, I send them through the loop. Once they're all in I deal with the bare grounds one at a time. Just makes things more manageable. ALSO VERY DELIBERATELY AND SLOWLY.

[zog]

"Looking for tips when pulling wire into a live panel."

Dont do it live!!!

"When possible I trying killing the main, but sometimes it's not possible."

I guarantee you OSHA will disagree unless you are working on a life safety system.

[220/221]

I suppose the number one rule would be, don't touch the buss.


I have worked thousands of hot panels and every day I get a little more cautious. The older the panel is, the more I am concerned. It seems like only a matter of time before somehow something is going to go phase to phase on me and make a big spark.

The most important thing is FOCUS. 100 percent of your attention should be on your situation. Think solely about keeping your tools and flesh away from those angry electrons.

[iwire]

I have worked thousands of hot panels

Something to consider.


1910.333(a)(1)

"Deenergized parts." Live parts to which an employee may be exposed shall be deenergized before the employee works on or near them, unless the employer can demonstrate that deenergizing introduces additional or increased hazards or is infeasible due to equipment design or operational limitations. Live parts that operate at less than 50 volts to ground need not be deenergized if there will be no increased exposure to electrical burns or to explosion due to electric arcs.


Note 1: Examples of increased or additional hazards include interruption of life support equipment, deactivation of emergency alarm systems, shutdown of hazardous location ventilation equipment, or removal of illumination for an area.

Note 2: Examples of work that may be performed on or near energized circuit parts because of infeasibility due to equipment design or operational limitations include testing of electric circuits that can only be performed with the circuit energized and work on circuits that form an integral part of a continuous industrial process in a chemical plant that would otherwise need to be completely shut down in order to permit work on one circuit or piece of equipment.


Note 3: Work on or near deenergized parts is covered by paragraph (b) of this section.

[cowboyjwc]

I have a story about running a fish tape into a live panel that I couldn't even start to relay here. Surfice it to say that it scared the "you know what" out of me who was standing in front of it, my wife who worked for the company that I was doing the electrical work for and was in the same room at the time, and my brother who was feeding the fish tape.

No electricians were harmed in the making of this story. :rolleyes:

Another time I threatened to fire my boss because he wasn't paying attention while I was feeding the fish tape into a live panel.

Don't do it if you can avoid it. If someone tells you that you can't shut the system down, then tell them you'll come back when you can.

[hardworkingstiff]

I am curious. Other than a life/safety issue (for real), why would you not be able to have the power off?

[growler]

Well folks I will agree on some things. Anyone that will feed a metal fish tape into a live panel shouldn't be working anything live. Maybe they shouldn't be working on anything, peroid.

People that look down the business end of a gun to see if it's loaded should not be allowed to own firearms.

People that are dumb enough to believe a politician are definately to dumb to be allowed to vote.

People that will do all of the above are normally making the rules that the rest of us have to live by.

Why???:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[220/221]

I am curious. Other than a life/safety issue (for real), why would you not be able to have the power off?

1. Troubleshooting is difficult with the power off.

2. To simply add a circuit in an occupied building would require after hours work, generator power and possibly an extensive set up of lights.




I guess Iwires quote covers these two items and:

infeasible due to equipment design or operational limitations.

pretty much covers everything else.

Operation limitations. That's not vague.

[ceb]

Be deliberate!! Go slow and always watch your hands and tools. Cover up what you can (open busses) and if you don't have insulated gloves at least wear dry cotton gloves. Be deliberate and go slowly!!

I agree with this statement. My best:grin: experience working a live panel was installing a bolt-in breaker. I had the screw on my screwdriver going slow to the buss when my pager, which I always kept on vibrate went off, after collecting the screwdriver from the other side of the room I looked at the number on the pager, it was from my home, called home wife ask what do you want for supper? Not hungry now dear! Still looking for the screw:D

[wbalsam1]

I agree with this statement. My best:grin: experience working a live panel was installing a bolt-in breaker. I had the screw on my screwdriver going slow to the buss when my pager, which I always kept on vibrate went off, after collecting the screwdriver from the other side of the room I looked at the number on the pager, it was from my home, called home wife ask what do you want for supper? Not hungry now dear! Still looking for the screw:D

I had a similar experience years back with FM business band radio. Almost caught cold from the chills that ran up my back when it was all over and I got to thinking about how close that was and how dumb I was. (But I kept right on working hot.....go figure):confused: :)

[220/221]

I was working on a hot panel at a huge plant (Sperry Rand turned Honeywell) in the 80's. There was this huge glassed in room with tons of those big old computers with what looked like huge reel to reel tapes on them and lots of people in white lab coats inside.

My boss, his boss and a couple of engineers from Sperry were there to supervise. I removed the panel cover, no problem. I removed the dead front, BIG problem.

A loaded three phase breaker made a slight arcing noise and within ten seconds I had about twenty of those rocket scientists converging in the room an I am the only one with tools on.

Apparently they lost a bit of data.:D

[hardworkingstiff]

1. Troubleshooting is difficult with the power off.
True, but most of the 'work' I saw earlier seemed to be adding conductors and pushing fish tapes, etc. These seem like two different 'work' issues.


2. To simply add a circuit in an occupied building would require after hours work, generator power and possibly an extensive set up of lights.



I wonder what happens in the building if PoCo drops power for 15 minutes?

[iaov]

In order to help some to understand that safety really is important, I am going to relate a story about my recent (2 weeks ago) panel work.

I was hired to perform some testing in a small (2-800 amp) gears. I had all of the good stuff, blankets, tools, gloves, protective equipment, etc.... The power was to stay on as the testing was for voltage and current. That is very hard to test if the power is turned off :D


Well I do the whole set up thing, and the contractor thinks I am nuts. I will not even let his electrician near the work, as he has no protective equipment.
As I am putting on my gloves, I remember to remove my wedding ring. I put it in the pocket of my Fluke tool bag.
About 3 hours later, I am finished. I am putting all of my tools away and I am now looking for my ring, of course I forgot where I left it and in a small panic have I enlisted the factory people to help me scour the floors for the "missing" ring. Finally after going over in my mind how to fabricate a story to tell my wife I lost the ring, I remembered where the ring was.
Moral of the story. Put the ring somewhere where you will remember and do not make an a$$ out of yourself. Wait, I forgot...yes, safety is that important.:wink: Electrons may or may not kill me. Losing my wedding ring would pretty much guarantee that the kids would be arguing in probate over who gets my stuff!!

[Minuteman]

While it is obvious that we have very few good reason to work in a hot panel, and one great reason not to, I still find myself doing it from time to time.

I can add only one thing to the cautions already posted. Plan your work. Look over everything and decide what you are going to do and how, so that your short time in the live panel is deliberate and effective.

However, it is far better to kill the power than yourself.

[stalllingselectric]

More often than not a Poco will drop power if you plan ahead. Unfortunately to many sparkies fold to the pressure and jump in the hot panel to either appease
a client or to make themselves look like THE MAN.
Sadly i know its our job to work em hot sometimes , but its gotta be a last resort , and if you do my suggestion is........NO INTERRUPTIONS NO BODY IN THE ROOM WITH YOU, NO PHONES NO DISTRACTIONS
just my thoughts

[dbuckley]

Do you not have distribution panel assemblies that are designed for live working? Much of my European experience was with data centres, and you dont want to turn them off to install another circuit, but the safely legislation makes it more or less impossible to work live on exposed panels. So... the distribution boards were designed from the start to be worked on live. There were no exposed live bits, the live bars and their connections being fully enclosed. The new MCB plugged in to its slot, and then you slid a thing across, and this slidy thing connected the MCB to the bar. This was the MG IsoBar system. (MG - part of Schneider, who now ownd SquareD) All in full safety.

For switchgear it all has to confoirm to "form 4", which separates stuff into compartments, and again you can do much (but not all) work on a live panel in full safety.

[little sparkie]

I work in hot panels and disconnects all the time. Wear PPE, use insulated tools, tape up what you don't want to touch, go slow and THINK, wear rubber-soled shoes, and TURN OFF THE CELL PHONE!! On one job I was working with my hands an inch from hot mains when my phone rang. Even though I let the call go to voice mail I jumped, and dang near got a 240VAC, 200A joy buzz. Not my comfort zone! I put it on vibe now when I work hot.

[JohnJ0906]

A cell on vibrate is as bad or worse than a ring, IMO. Either will make me jump.

[360Youth]

Not my comfort zone! I put it on vibe now when I work hot.

Oh, no, no, no. If I am working hot, the phone is on silent or in the truck.

[electricalperson]

i always usually try to shut the power off when i work with romex in a live panel. the uninsulated ground makes a hell of a blast if it hits the busbars