tallguy
Senior Member
Warning... LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG
First, in the interests of full disclosure, I'll explain my situation. My circumstances are quite similar to those of tallgirl (hence my choice of handle!):
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=80406
I help people who otherwise are not able to get help... simple as that. Everything I do is with the blessing of the AHJ, when possible under the supervision of a retired master (with current license).
On to the project in question...
I was on a 4 day stint to replace & level a horribly degraded kitchen floor (no foundation under the house -- the sill is right on dirt). This is at a Christian camp with dozens of buildings, with the house in question built in the early part of the century -- I'm guessing 1920's. Electrification appears to have been done in the 1950s as near as I can tell, with additional work done in mid-90s by local vo/tech students.
Service is 60A 240v with two pulls (main & range) and 4 fuses. The range in the house is gas, so the range pull is not used... hence we have 30A 240v service in the house. So far so good.
I discovered the following:
1) Only two receptacles in kitchen, one two-prong, and one 30A twist lock -- neither had voltage.
2) All devices in or fed through the kitchen -- refrigerator, washer, gas stove, gas dryer, coffee pot, toaster, mixer, blender, luminaire, heat tape for pipes, R/V hookup (I kid you not), and chicken coop heat lamps -- were all running through piggybacked power strips plugged into receptacles in the living room.
3) Entire house was routed through 10/3 to an FPE fuse box, 1950s vintage, maybe 1960s at latest. A grand total of four screws on the neutral bar. Grounds tied in here as well (of course), many wires under each screw, including one neutral which was not secured at all -- just laying up against the head of the screw. Amazing.
4) All of fuses were overfused @ 30A. I didn't do a comprehensive survey, as it would require tearing the house down, but wire was mostly #14. The microwave had a dedicated circuit and another of the fuses was unused, so the rest of the house was on only two (2) fuses. It appears to be just dumb luck that the two fuses in question were not on the same phase!
5) There were at least two "minor" electrical fires that the HO knew of within the past five years. Near as I could tell these were of the pop/flash/oops "let's not do that again" variety. I believe these are what led to the non-working outlet(s) and 30A fuses.
6) The feed to the chicken coop & R/V hookup is a 50' extension cord buried under the driveway.
7) No GFCIs in entire house, with exception of one in the bathroom which was dangling outside of a handy box which itself was dangling out of the wall.
8) I could find no grounding rod(s)
9) The vo/tech kids (one can tell due to vintage of the wire) seemed to think it was a bright idea to bend back the ground wire 180 degrees to poke out through the cable clamp, rather hooking through to the 10/3 in the fuse box. Maybe they figured there was no room on the neutral bar anyway? Anyone else seen this before?
The HO and wife are very nice folks, not idiots, but they are stuck with this place and they don't have anything in terms of resources, so they are making do. Basically, the wife says they don't run any two things at once other than lighting and A/C in the summer.
So.... I set about doing what I could in the time alotted to deal with the most aggregious violations and hazards. In no particular order:
1) Got rid of those 30A fuses, replaced with 15A. I was unable to convert to S-type. It's tough when Wal-Mart is the local supply house!
2) Ran separate #14 cables to four locations in kitchen: counter area (toaster, etc.), dryer/heat tape, washer/stove, and outdoor outlets. The counter area is connected to the microwave fuse, while the other three are connected to the previously unused fuse. Certainly this is far from ideal, but each has it's own feed, so they can be easily separated when upgrading to breakers. Each feed is protected by its own GFCI as well. At the very least, this will mean that many of these devices will be able to run concurrently, and safely.
3) The buried extension cord was removed and replaced with #14 UF-B, with red dot CodeKeepers on either side of the driveway.
4) Hanging GFCI in bathroom was fixed with Madison bars.
5) Opened up the fuse box and removed all neutrals and grounds to tidy it up. The box is tucked in above the fridge, and given its location and the direction of entry for the cables, it was not feasible to use j-boxes to reduce the number of wires entering. At any rate, I opted to not isolate the grounds, as I didn't see a reasonable way to bond to the box apart from the bar. I did, however, remove all the grounds (save for the #10 feed) and wire nut them to a #12 jumper to the bar. It was the only way I could see to reasonably land everything. So now I have a #10 & #12 ground along with six or so #14/#12 neutrals under four screws. I would be quite interested to hear if anyone has a better approach given that the box itself could not be replaced at that moment.
6) Dead-ended non-working outlets. No voltage to these, but I wouldn't take any chances and complete removal was impossible.
7) I don't know what to do about the grounding rod or lack thereof... I'm hoping that I just missed it. The area is covered with a very thick blanket of pine needles that is quite spongy, so the rod and wire could be several inches down for all I know. There was a jumper from the telco that went down into the morass a couple feet from the house, but I couldn't get anywhere with it. Any tricks for ferreting out a ground rod/wire?
After all that context, my question is "now what"? If it were my house, I'd start by upgrading to 100A service, but I don't know how to evaluate the drop from the street (actually, the camp pole) to see if this is feasible.
I see no issue with the 60A service in and of itself, although I didn't do an according to Hoyle calculation. I did do a back of the envelope calculation of their devices that draw significant amperage (basically everything other than the lights) and it only added up to 50A. Theoretically, I'd love to just replace that 30A fuse box with a 30A breaker panel, then run 10/3 from the range pull to another 30A breaker panel, but AFAIK they only make 30A panels for boats and such though.
Running #6 from the attic down to a new 60A subpanel (can I even get a new 60A panel?) in a new location, and then running conduit from the existing FPE to the new panel strikes me as a giant pain, and expensive.
Incidentally, until recently, there was no meter on the house as the camp pays the entire utility bill... the HO is charged a flat fee for electricity, and wanted to know his actual consumption. A "friend" installed a meter for them, inside, behind a wood panel so the dome sticks out about an inch. So, a service disconnect is impossible without removing a wall or calling the POCO.
Turns out the "friend" is also the AHJ... He is aware of the conditions within the house and has taken a "don't ask, don't tell" stance, which I'm not at all thrilled with. At least I feel better for having addressed the most hair-raising issues as quickly as I could.
Thoughts on options moving forward?
First, in the interests of full disclosure, I'll explain my situation. My circumstances are quite similar to those of tallgirl (hence my choice of handle!):
http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=80406
I help people who otherwise are not able to get help... simple as that. Everything I do is with the blessing of the AHJ, when possible under the supervision of a retired master (with current license).
On to the project in question...
I was on a 4 day stint to replace & level a horribly degraded kitchen floor (no foundation under the house -- the sill is right on dirt). This is at a Christian camp with dozens of buildings, with the house in question built in the early part of the century -- I'm guessing 1920's. Electrification appears to have been done in the 1950s as near as I can tell, with additional work done in mid-90s by local vo/tech students.
Service is 60A 240v with two pulls (main & range) and 4 fuses. The range in the house is gas, so the range pull is not used... hence we have 30A 240v service in the house. So far so good.
I discovered the following:
1) Only two receptacles in kitchen, one two-prong, and one 30A twist lock -- neither had voltage.
2) All devices in or fed through the kitchen -- refrigerator, washer, gas stove, gas dryer, coffee pot, toaster, mixer, blender, luminaire, heat tape for pipes, R/V hookup (I kid you not), and chicken coop heat lamps -- were all running through piggybacked power strips plugged into receptacles in the living room.
3) Entire house was routed through 10/3 to an FPE fuse box, 1950s vintage, maybe 1960s at latest. A grand total of four screws on the neutral bar. Grounds tied in here as well (of course), many wires under each screw, including one neutral which was not secured at all -- just laying up against the head of the screw. Amazing.
4) All of fuses were overfused @ 30A. I didn't do a comprehensive survey, as it would require tearing the house down, but wire was mostly #14. The microwave had a dedicated circuit and another of the fuses was unused, so the rest of the house was on only two (2) fuses. It appears to be just dumb luck that the two fuses in question were not on the same phase!
5) There were at least two "minor" electrical fires that the HO knew of within the past five years. Near as I could tell these were of the pop/flash/oops "let's not do that again" variety. I believe these are what led to the non-working outlet(s) and 30A fuses.
6) The feed to the chicken coop & R/V hookup is a 50' extension cord buried under the driveway.
7) No GFCIs in entire house, with exception of one in the bathroom which was dangling outside of a handy box which itself was dangling out of the wall.
8) I could find no grounding rod(s)
9) The vo/tech kids (one can tell due to vintage of the wire) seemed to think it was a bright idea to bend back the ground wire 180 degrees to poke out through the cable clamp, rather hooking through to the 10/3 in the fuse box. Maybe they figured there was no room on the neutral bar anyway? Anyone else seen this before?
The HO and wife are very nice folks, not idiots, but they are stuck with this place and they don't have anything in terms of resources, so they are making do. Basically, the wife says they don't run any two things at once other than lighting and A/C in the summer.
So.... I set about doing what I could in the time alotted to deal with the most aggregious violations and hazards. In no particular order:
1) Got rid of those 30A fuses, replaced with 15A. I was unable to convert to S-type. It's tough when Wal-Mart is the local supply house!
2) Ran separate #14 cables to four locations in kitchen: counter area (toaster, etc.), dryer/heat tape, washer/stove, and outdoor outlets. The counter area is connected to the microwave fuse, while the other three are connected to the previously unused fuse. Certainly this is far from ideal, but each has it's own feed, so they can be easily separated when upgrading to breakers. Each feed is protected by its own GFCI as well. At the very least, this will mean that many of these devices will be able to run concurrently, and safely.
3) The buried extension cord was removed and replaced with #14 UF-B, with red dot CodeKeepers on either side of the driveway.
4) Hanging GFCI in bathroom was fixed with Madison bars.
5) Opened up the fuse box and removed all neutrals and grounds to tidy it up. The box is tucked in above the fridge, and given its location and the direction of entry for the cables, it was not feasible to use j-boxes to reduce the number of wires entering. At any rate, I opted to not isolate the grounds, as I didn't see a reasonable way to bond to the box apart from the bar. I did, however, remove all the grounds (save for the #10 feed) and wire nut them to a #12 jumper to the bar. It was the only way I could see to reasonably land everything. So now I have a #10 & #12 ground along with six or so #14/#12 neutrals under four screws. I would be quite interested to hear if anyone has a better approach given that the box itself could not be replaced at that moment.
6) Dead-ended non-working outlets. No voltage to these, but I wouldn't take any chances and complete removal was impossible.
7) I don't know what to do about the grounding rod or lack thereof... I'm hoping that I just missed it. The area is covered with a very thick blanket of pine needles that is quite spongy, so the rod and wire could be several inches down for all I know. There was a jumper from the telco that went down into the morass a couple feet from the house, but I couldn't get anywhere with it. Any tricks for ferreting out a ground rod/wire?
After all that context, my question is "now what"? If it were my house, I'd start by upgrading to 100A service, but I don't know how to evaluate the drop from the street (actually, the camp pole) to see if this is feasible.
I see no issue with the 60A service in and of itself, although I didn't do an according to Hoyle calculation. I did do a back of the envelope calculation of their devices that draw significant amperage (basically everything other than the lights) and it only added up to 50A. Theoretically, I'd love to just replace that 30A fuse box with a 30A breaker panel, then run 10/3 from the range pull to another 30A breaker panel, but AFAIK they only make 30A panels for boats and such though.
Running #6 from the attic down to a new 60A subpanel (can I even get a new 60A panel?) in a new location, and then running conduit from the existing FPE to the new panel strikes me as a giant pain, and expensive.
Incidentally, until recently, there was no meter on the house as the camp pays the entire utility bill... the HO is charged a flat fee for electricity, and wanted to know his actual consumption. A "friend" installed a meter for them, inside, behind a wood panel so the dome sticks out about an inch. So, a service disconnect is impossible without removing a wall or calling the POCO.
Turns out the "friend" is also the AHJ... He is aware of the conditions within the house and has taken a "don't ask, don't tell" stance, which I'm not at all thrilled with. At least I feel better for having addressed the most hair-raising issues as quickly as I could.
Thoughts on options moving forward?