Service Question

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emtfire148186

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Downingtown, Pa
Ran into a issue today with a service. A guy is redoing an old store front into 3 small apartments. My plan is to come down the side of the building about 25' into a 3 gang meter socket. Come out of that and go along the building on the outside to the 3 units. Its about a 40' run from the meters. This will all be in ridged conduit. The city codes inspector said i needed a disconnect at the meter since my run was more then 5' out of the meters. I could be wrong but i thought that was the rule if i was running inside the building. I cant fine the section in the book. Anyone know the section off hand? Thanks a lot
 
I was under the impression that once you have 3 dwelling units you have to have a 4th meter and breaker panel for the (house) landlord. It takes in "common area" lighting and smoke alarms. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
emtfire148186 said:
Ran into a issue today with a service. A guy is redoing an old store front into 3 small apartments. My plan is to come down the side of the building about 25' into a 3 gang meter socket. Come out of that and go along the building on the outside to the 3 units. Its about a 40' run from the meters. This will all be in ridged conduit. The city codes inspector said i needed a disconnect at the meter since my run was more then 5' out of the meters. I could be wrong but i thought that was the rule if i was running inside the building. I cant fine the section in the book. Anyone know the section off hand? Thanks a lot
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I agree with iwire but I wonder-do you intend to group the 3 service disconnects at the distant location? You can't have 1 service to a building with multiple service disconnects that are not grouped.
 
Yes, He has a house panel at this location. He has apartments upstairs and another store on the front part of the building. I was going to do a three gang meter socket on the side of the building and come out of that to the three units with main breaker panels. Hope that makes sense.
 
texie said:
I agree with iwire but I wonder-do you intend to group the 3 service disconnects at the distant location? You can't have 1 service to a building with multiple service disconnects that are not grouped.
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What about 230.40 ex #1? IMO he would have to verify that these are indeed separate occupancies as determined by his building dept to use this exception.
 
electrofelon said:
What about 230.40 ex #1? IMO he would have to verify that these are indeed separate occupancies as determined by his building dept to use this exception.
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I would agree, except for the fact that the OP proposed a 3 gang meter socket indicates that this is one service.
I think I understand what you are saying -typical of a "row house" or a "townhouse" where there are firewalls and separate service laterals to each unit. But I don't get the sense that this applies here.
 
texie said:
I would agree, except for the fact that the OP proposed a 3 gang meter socket indicates that this is one service.
I think I understand what you are saying -typical of a "row house" or a "townhouse" where there are firewalls and separate service laterals to each unit. But I don't get the sense that this applies here.
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I dont see why it couldnt be used here, with the aforementioned disclaimer about the the occupancies being official. I have used it on a three story, three family apt building: one set of service entrance conductors to each unit. One service, one building, disconnects not grouped. A similar arrangement might be a store, widget stretching facility, medical marijuana dispensary (if state law allows) at street level, and apartments above (all one building). IMO you could run a set of service entrance conductors to each and not have to group the disconnects....
 
Yes, This will be a single service. There is two other service drops on the other side of the building. One for the front store and the other for the 6 apartments upstairs. From what the property owner said he talked to peco and they will be doing another drop for the 3 units that will be going in.

The other apartments service goes into the basement and that's about a 125' run from the drop. I was going to do the 3 gang on the side due to the increase cost of wire. This will only need about 25' of cable.
 
emtfire148186 said:
Yes, This will be a single service. There is two other service drops on the other side of the building. One for the front store and the other for the 6 apartments upstairs. From what the property owner said he talked to peco and they will be doing another drop for the 3 units that will be going in.

The other apartments service goes into the basement and that's about a 125' run from the drop. I was going to do the 3 gang on the side due to the increase cost of wire. This will only need about 25' of cable.
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Wow that is a lot of services for one building. The NEC does allow more than one service in certain situations but I am surprised those reasons would be valid here. Also the utilities I deal with strongly dislike providing two services. From what you say, yours is certainly pretty chill about it indeed.
 
goldstar said:
I was under the impression that once you have 3 dwelling units you have to have a 4th meter and breaker panel for the (house) landlord. It takes in "common area" lighting and smoke alarms. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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What if there is no "common area"? Run a service/separate meter with no connected load?

electrofelon said:
I dont see why it couldnt be used here, with the aforementioned disclaimer about the the occupancies being official. I have used it on a three story, three family apt building: one set of service entrance conductors to each unit. One service, one building, disconnects not grouped. A similar arrangement might be a store, widget stretching facility, medical marijuana dispensary (if state law allows) at street level, and apartments above (all one building). IMO you could run a set of service entrance conductors to each and not have to group the disconnects....
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Other building codes usually will come into play here. Many AHJ's will want at least a 2 hour finish between each occupancy. Many consider allowing a 2 hour finish to qualify each side as a separate building. That being the case, the separate building is allowed a separate service anyway.
 
kwired said:
What if there is no "common area"? Run a service/separate meter with no connected load?
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Granted, I made some assumptions but usually when you have multiple apartments there are some common areas (i.e basement, attic, hallway, etc.). So, I am not able to answer your question directly as I have never run into that situation. Things seem to be a lot different in Nebraska :p
 
emtfire148186 said:
My plan is to come down the side of the building about 25' into a 3 gang meter socket.
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My understanding is that this is the only portion of the service (aside from the aerial drop) that is allowed to be unprotected (except for those most common instances where you leave the meter enclosure and go directly into a main disconnect or main breaker panel using the shortest distance possible).
Come out of that and go along the building on the outside to the 3 units. Its about a 40' run from the meters. This will all be in ridged conduit.
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This is where the problem lies. It's surface mounted on the outside of the building and unprotected (electrically speaking). It makes no difference whether it's in rigid gal or rigid PVC.
The city codes inspector said i needed a disconnect at the meter since my run was more then 5' out of the meters. I could be wrong but i thought that was the rule if i was running inside the building. I cant fine the section in the book. Anyone know the section off hand? Thanks a lot
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I believe the inspector is correct in this case. Off hand the only NEC (2011) sections I could cite are 230.70, 230.90 and 230.91
 
goldstar said:
Granted, I made some assumptions but usually when you have multiple apartments there are some common areas (i.e basement, attic, hallway, etc.). So, I am not able to answer your question directly as I have never run into that situation. Things seem to be a lot different in Nebraska :p
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There are "mini-malls" and old "main streets" all over the country. Op said this was an old store front, kind of leads me to think there is likely only access from front and rear and buildings right next to the other sides. Now if there is multi levels or interior halls between occupancies then yes there should be a "house" meter for those areas. But if this is all one level like mini malls then you basically have separate buildings but right next to one another, and maybe all have same owner but that really doesn't matter.
 
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