I did a job several months ago and at final inspection ( on a new house 7300 sq ft.) the inspector said the ground to the water service was under sized and wanted it run in a larger size. The panel was a Sq D homline 400 amp meter main combination, this panel has two 200 amp breakers fed from the meter socket by using parallel 3/0 copper (factory wired) I ran a #2 copper. The inspector wanted 1/0 copper.
It was the last day before the house was to get turned over to the home owners and we needed the house final inspection signed off. So after trying to explain, how he was misreading the code, I just ran in 1/0.
Now that this job is over and done, I want to get a formal interpretation on this from the code makers. How do I go about doing this ?
Just to fill in the blanks, I sized my ground base on the combined cross sectional mills of parallel 3/0 and the fact that our local POCO (PG&E) had run 350 KCMIL aluminum for service conductors, under ground fed. The water service is copper for 50+ feet to the house. If the meter socket to breakers had been bussing, instead of cable, I would have run 1/0.
I feel this was a Bad call, but I have asked at least 3 other building inspectors what they would say and they felt 1/0 is the correct size. There stand "the label on the panel says 400 amps so you need a 1/0 cu. ground". At the time we couldn't wait for a formal interpretation, now I just want official clarification for future installs.
It was the last day before the house was to get turned over to the home owners and we needed the house final inspection signed off. So after trying to explain, how he was misreading the code, I just ran in 1/0.
Now that this job is over and done, I want to get a formal interpretation on this from the code makers. How do I go about doing this ?
Just to fill in the blanks, I sized my ground base on the combined cross sectional mills of parallel 3/0 and the fact that our local POCO (PG&E) had run 350 KCMIL aluminum for service conductors, under ground fed. The water service is copper for 50+ feet to the house. If the meter socket to breakers had been bussing, instead of cable, I would have run 1/0.
I feel this was a Bad call, but I have asked at least 3 other building inspectors what they would say and they felt 1/0 is the correct size. There stand "the label on the panel says 400 amps so you need a 1/0 cu. ground". At the time we couldn't wait for a formal interpretation, now I just want official clarification for future installs.