Liquid Tape: An acceptable repair for damaged 480V wire?

[K8MHZ]

failing to pay a small claims judgement will allow the court to place a lien on company assets. i dont know what the threshold is for small claims in his jurisdiction, but i was in one that was $2500. if it goes beyond the threshold then it moves up to std courts.

Here if you file a small claim you negate your right to file a regular civil suit for the same issue. BTDT watched my EC friend lose a couple grand. A small claims judgment also (here anyway) negates your right to 'self correction' or taking back materials installed on the job that weren't paid for.

 

[kwired]

Here if you file a small claim you negate your right to file a regular civil suit for the same issue. BTDT watched my EC friend lose a couple grand. A small claims judgment also (here anyway) negates your right to 'self correction' or taking back materials installed on the job that weren't paid for.

Once installed the general rule usually is that it becomes part of the property it is a part of, no court judgement is ordinarily necessary to determine this, making it illegal to try to "self correct" an to do so can become a criminal charge for theft, but they also claim you can not bill for items before they are installed - leaving the contractor as the one who has all the risk of losing something:roll:

 

[FionaZuppa]

My judgements were against individuals, it was my problem to collect, one option was finding out if they owned anything, which I could then lien (or take? I don't remember). Of course this involved more court fees.

If I ever do it again I'm going after pets, which are property, that ought to get their attention.

filing against person is not good, must file against the company. against company typically gives the court more powers to help you collect. its also hard to make accusations against a person because many times such person will say "that wasnt me who did that". when against a company only a company rep needs to show up and its regardless of what person(s) did the work as the work was done "by the company", not person, etc. having names of persons who did work or said something is evidence, etc.

and just for clarity, i believe the issue is 30ft of wire, not the full run. does it really cost more than $10k to re-pull 500mcm (x3 or x4) 30ft ??

 

[kwired]

filing against person is not good, must file against the company. against company typically gives the court more powers to help you collect. its also hard to make accusations against a person because many times such person will say "that wasnt me who did that". when against a company only a company rep needs to show up and its regardless of what person(s) did the work as the work was done "by the company", not person, etc. having names of persons who did work or said something is evidence, etc.

and just for clarity, i believe the issue is 30ft of wire, not the full run. does it really cost more than $10k to re-pull 500mcm (x3 or x4) 30ft ??

Well you probably have about 15-20% of 10k just in new conductor alone, then there is labor, possible junction boxes/splicing materials if only replacing a portion of a run, and if it is even acceptable to make such splices. Of course if I were the one that had to eat the cost I would want to be able to sell the old copper for scrap to recover what I can from this.

 

[FionaZuppa]

Well you probably have about 15-20% of 10k just in new conductor alone, then there is labor, possible junction boxes/splicing materials if only replacing a portion of a run, and if it is even acceptable to make such splices. Of course if I were the one that had to eat the cost I would want to be able to sell the old copper for scrap to recover what I can from this.

i believe it was just 30ft terminated on each end, not 30ft of a big run needing splicing. so $10k to pull 30ft and do std termination on each end?? it may be, i just dont know, thus curious.

 

[kwired]

i believe it was just 30ft terminated on each end, not 30ft of a big run needing splicing. so $10k to pull 30ft and do std termination on each end?? it may be, i just dont know, thus curious.

Probably not going to be 10k if that is the case. Like I said based on an online pricing site from one of my suppliers I could get the conductor for maybe about $1500. There will be labor costs/or at least loss of other potential income during the time this is being done. 30 ft of 500's is definitely going to take a little more time to handle it all then 30 feet of 12AWG, but only just a little more

 

[iwire]

and just for clarity, i believe the issue is 30ft of wire, not the full run. does it really cost more than $10k to re-pull 500mcm (x3 or x4) 30ft ??

Sure when it involves off hours work, coordinated shutdowns etc.

All the costs of the facilities labor and any lost production due to the shutdown on top of the actual repair costs should be paid for by the contractor that screwed up.

 

[FionaZuppa]

Sure when it involves off hours work, coordinated shutdowns etc.

All the costs of the facilities labor and any lost production due to the shutdown on top of the actual repair costs should be paid for by the contractor that screwed up.

i would certainly have a detailed list of new contractor bill + site outage bill ready for litigation. the judge will decide exactly what is awarded. if the work is done at night is there any outage on this PV system in the section being worked on ???

 

[Fulthrotl]

Sure when it involves off hours work, coordinated shutdowns etc.

All the costs of the facilities labor and any lost production due to the shutdown on top of the actual repair costs should be paid for by the contractor that screwed up.

+1... liquidated damages, the wild card.

here's my take on it. you have damaged conductors in a pipe. the wire was good when it
was pulled in. some boneheaded install damaged it. the same boneheads who damaged
the last 30' put in the rest of it. you will not know the status of the entire run until you
pull the bad 30' out of the pipe, separate them, and do a PI test on the cables. you are
gonna have 3 or 4 guys there, and costs accumulate quickly.

i pulled out some old copper feeders that were bad recently. they were in pvc, and below
the water line, and the insulation was so damaged by the installers 13 years ago, that the
wire had been sitting down there boiling itself dry until the lines were shut off, then it
filled up with water, and was toast. as i was scrapping it, i was cutting it in 10' lengths.
you could stand a 10 piece on end, and between a pint and a quart of water would run
out the end of the cable, they were that damaged that the stranding was completely filled
with water... we won't even mention the polaris butt connectors that were buried 6' down.

this is what came out the pipe. this was 750 MCM. not something you normally butt splice
in a pipe with setscrew fittings...



now, that's a gosh darn sorry install. and this one isn't looking a whole lot better. i'd have zero trust
in anything these guys touched. i'd assume it's all bad until tested.

 

[ggunn]

not quite that simple in georgia

Nor in Texas.

 

[iwire]

if the work is done at night is there any outage on this PV system in the section being worked on ???

Not sure, the OP mentioned before they had to shut down large switchgear for the original work to be done.

 

[jaylectricity]

I'm sorry if this has been covered, I'm not reading the thread. But I keep seeing it pop up so I wanted to mention that I've been using liquid tape to repair my sleep headphones. If you have the iphone headphones with the volume control you know what I'm talking about.

The place where the cable splits into each channel comes apart often because I go to sleep wearing them with my ipod in the cubby in my headboard. So eventually they rip out of my ears as the night goes on.

So anyway, I've used liquid tape to cobble the "splice" back together. The wires weren't damaged, just the rubber coating. I've had to do it three or four times over the last six months.

So I question whether or not liquid tape is durable enough for something of such a high voltage. On the other hand, nobody is sleeping with a 480V conductor attached to their head.

 

[Jon456]

Again I apologize for not replying to some of the comments and questions in a timely manner; I've been pretty swamped and haven't had much time in the office. Although I have been watching this thread periodically on my phone.

it's pissing me off enough, that if you need a third party to write a formal assessment, and you are in the greater LA area, i'll do it. gratis. no strings attached. i don't want the
work, i'm slammed already.

so, if you need a C-10 without a financial interest to give an independent assessment,
and cost of the proper repairs, drop me a PM. hell, even if you aren't anywhere in the LA
area, but are near some good motorcycle off roading areas, i'm still game.

I already sent a PM to Fulthrotl a couple of days ago, but I wanted to publically acknowledge his post and thank him for his generous offer. Our facility is just north of SF, so it would be quite a journey from LA. But there is some beautiful geography up here, and amazing coastal and country roads abound.

 

[Jon456]

the subjectiveness of "unacceptable" usually is the same for any professional in this industry/trade. it becomes an argument only when one party is trying to avoid the problem. as mentioned, some small scraps/abrasions are likely accepted by the trade, but a deep tear is not.

This strikes at the very heart of the problem: in litigation, how do we support our position that this Liquid Tape & plastic scraps "repair" is unacceptable? The contractor claims that, because it passed a megger test, that his warranty obligation has been satisfied. But I could come up with a dozen improper hacks to make a damaged wire pass a megger when the wire is in a dry location. I'm sure this circuit will badly fail a "flooded conduit" test, but we obviously don't want to try filling the conduit with water while the conduit is connected to the inverter.

 

[Jon456]

i believe it was just 30ft terminated on each end, not 30ft of a big run needing splicing. so $10k to pull 30ft and do std termination on each end?? it may be, i just dont know, thus curious.

This is the final 30 feet of a 700 foot total run from the PV distribution panel to our #4 inverter. In that 700 foot run, there are only two pull locations: the LB pictured above, ~30 from the inverter; and an in-ground pull-box located roughly 400 feet from the inverter. The in-ground pull box contains splices in these wires.

I am confident that there is additional damage to the insulation within the 30 feet of conduit between the LB and the inverter. What I do not know is if there is any damage to the wire between the LB and the in-ground pull box. The part that's underground is probably OK because the underground conduit is filled with water and passed the megger test. But there is 250 feet of elevated EMT conduit from the back of the LB to where the conduit transitions to buried PVC. Since that is dry, it's possible it contains damaged wire but still passes the megger test.

Since the contractor has refused to perform a proper repair to the last 30 feet of this run and we are going to be forced to hire another contractor to make the repairs, we are now planning to do a flooded conduit test on the 250 feet of elevated EMT while the 30 feet of raceway is taken apart.

 

[GoldDigger]

An interesting bit of logic: the code requires that the raceway be complete before the wire is pulled into it. But it does not require you to pull the wire back out before disassembling that raceway.

 

[Jon456]

Probably not going to be 10k if that is the case. Like I said based on an online pricing site from one of my suppliers I could get the conductor for maybe about $1500. There will be labor costs/or at least loss of other potential income during the time this is being done. 30 ft of 500's is definitely going to take a little more time to handle it all then 30 feet of 12AWG, but only just a little more

In my mind, there are two ways to make the repair:

1. Move the inverter off the pad (we have a crane on site with which we can do this). Then disassemble the 30 feet of conduit from the inverter back to the LB, slide it off the wires, and inspect. Repair or replace as necessary. If replacing, the LB will need to be replaced with a wire trough to contain the splices.

2. Assume that the final 30 feet are all damaged and simply cut the conduit after the LB. Pull out the old wires. Then replace the LB (and a section of the conduit) with a wire trough, pull in all new 500MCM wires, and splice in the trough.

I don't know what either will cost. But I do know that pulling (3) 500 MCM copper conductors through two 90 deg bends is not a one-man job.

 

[Jon456]

Not sure, the OP mentioned before they had to shut down large switchgear for the original work to be done.

Liquidated costs will definitely be included in the claimed damages. We will not have to shut down the entire facility to make this repair (unlike the repairs that had to be made to our facility feeders and our PV feeders). We don't even have to shut down the entire 1MW PV system; we only need to shut down the #4 inverter (250 kW) and lock-out its AC OCPD at the PV distribution panel.

 

[GoldDigger]

Just out of curiosity, do you know what direction the original pull was made in for these wires?

 

[readydave8]

filing against person is not good, must file against the company. against company typically gives the court more powers to help you collect. its also hard to make accusations against a person because many times such person will say "that wasnt me who did that". when against a company only a company rep needs to show up and its regardless of what person(s) did the work as the work was done "by the company", not person, etc. having names of persons who did work or said something is evidence, etc.

and just for clarity, i believe the issue is 30ft of wire, not the full run. does it really cost more than $10k to re-pull 500mcm (x3 or x4) 30ft ??

Happened to be at magistrate court office today, refreshed my memory on Georgia Small Claims:

$15,000 limit

Doesn't matter if filed against individual or company, the court does NOThelp collect judgement. Instructions on filing small claims show this in bold print, about the size I used for "not."