Temporary power, GFEP for food vendors?

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RX7Guy

Member
Location
Northern VA
Hello Gentlemen,

I am putting together a temporary power system for some vendors at a week long sporting event, there will be 6 food vendors and a maximum of 20 non-food vendors. I will be setting up a temporary sub-panel and feeding MWBC's with 12/4 hard usage cord(SOOW or similar) on two pole breakers. Food vendors will be getting two circuits each in a 2G box and the other vendors will be sharing a circuit between two, each with their own 1G box(4 boxes per run, last two fed with 12/3).
All of the non-food vendors will be provided circuits with GFCI protection, for the food vendors I am on the fence about providing GFEP to avoid nuisance trips. I see 590.6 regarding ground fault protection for personnel in temporary installations but if the food receptacles are deemed for equipment(appliances) could I use GFEP breakers and standard duplex receptacles? My estimate has been padded to allow for the expense of GFEP breakers.

The safest and most reliable way I see this being done for personnel is to stack the panel with GFCI breakers and deal with the nuisance trips, I'm just worried we'll have some extremely angry food vendors if their circuits trip multiple times a day for a week even if we have a rep on site to address any power issues.


What do you guys think?
 

jumper

Senior Member
The safest and most reliable way I see this being done for personnel is to stack the panel with GFCI breakers and deal with the nuisance trips,

What do you guys think?

I think that is best. I see no allowance just using GFPE in lieu of GFCI protection.

Individual GFCI receptacles instead of breakers may help with nuisance tripping as that will eliminate the accumulative leakage effect of having multiple pieces of equipment off one GFCI device.
 
I do a larger version of this 3-4 times a year-

GFCIs for everything. As mentioned, that's in 590 (and 525.23(A)), and no matter what you say should be connected to the outlet, the caterer will plug in whatever they feel like. Also, do you know that each caterer only needs two circuits? I run into some that need 5-6 (and only ask for one or two). (You can search these forums for "food vendor" or "caterer" for interesting stories about what they do.) Trips? They will, but unless it rains, more often on over-current than ground fault. They'll go looking for breakers, so lock the box or accept that they'll reset 'em.

During setup, be prepared to 'condemn' some vendor's gear- extensions with the ground pin missing, two pieces spliced with wire nuts, the entire jacket ripped off the conductors, quad boxes where the cord connector has fallen off. I'm not making any of those up :rant:.

Rent, do not build, your distro gear. Unless you have a place to store it and a wad of cash for SOOW cable, you're probably better off renting. Sounds like a four-out spider box distro, four standard spider boxes, and a pile of 6/4 cable will do the trick. Maybe some "outlet stringers". I've used Temp-Power, they're in Manassas, for this kind of gear and it's been good. There are others.

MWBCs for this are not a great idea; a badly-behaved vendor takes down a well-behaved one. Or the cook's fryer kills all their lights. I've used them when the loads are more known, but still had problems. (The guy selling table lamps- had a 200w lamp in each one, and was demo-ing, oh, 10-12 at a time....)

Do you have to provide lights for vendor tents or do they?
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
During setup, be prepared to 'condemn' some vendor's gear- extensions with the ground pin missing, two pieces spliced with wire nuts, the entire jacket ripped off the conductors, quad boxes where the cord connector has fallen off. I'm not making any of those up :rant:.

Isn't problems like those a major reason we need to provide GFCI protection? If they consistently pull up to places that provide GFCI protection they will eventually learn to fix their problem equipment - well maybe not all of them will
 
Isn't problems like those a major reason we need to provide GFCI protection? If they consistently pull up to places that provide GFCI protection they will eventually learn to fix their problem equipment - well maybe not all of them will

I suppose, but most of the problems I run into will trip the breaker first. The ones that trip the GFCI are generally the trucks* wired by RV guys that intermix the N's and G's. Not such a problem when fed by their generator, but don't work so well on a 20a GFCI. I probably rewire one of them every show; for some consideration, that is.

*second place is usually old chest freezers, third is leaving a plug-strip under the leaky sink
 

RX7Guy

Member
Location
Northern VA
I do a larger version of this 3-4 times a year-

GFCIs for everything. As mentioned, that's in 590 (and 525.23(A)), and no matter what you say should be connected to the outlet, the caterer will plug in whatever they feel like. Also, do you know that each caterer only needs two circuits? I run into some that need 5-6 (and only ask for one or two). (You can search these forums for "food vendor" or "caterer" for interesting stories about what they do.) Trips? They will, but unless it rains, more often on over-current than ground fault. They'll go looking for breakers, so lock the box or accept that they'll reset 'em.
The tournament sponsor gave us absolutely no power requirements, I'm giving them as much as I can without bringing in a generator. I included a footnote on the quote that I cannot guarantee adequate power or that they will not risk tripping the main for the sub-panel if the vendors draw too much power. The sponsor acknowledged it and signed off, I guess if they need more power they'll need to have their own generators. We will also have an electrician for on site support the entire event.

During setup, be prepared to 'condemn' some vendor's gear- extensions with the ground pin missing, two pieces spliced with wire nuts, the entire jacket ripped off the conductors, quad boxes where the cord connector has fallen off. I'm not making any of those up :rant:.
Thanks for the tip, I'll have my guys on the lookout.

Rent, do not build, your distro gear. Unless you have a place to store it and a wad of cash for SOOW cable, you're probably better off renting. Sounds like a four-out spider box distro, four standard spider boxes, and a pile of 6/4 cable will do the trick. Maybe some "outlet stringers". I've used Temp-Power, they're in Manassas, for this kind of gear and it's been good. There are others.
I work for a public agency, the quote I provided allowed for us to purchase all the gear(and is padded because I quoted for 2 pole CH GFEP breakers which are $), I may look into redesigning the system and pulling up a generator if I can keep the cost similar. I did suggest that a temporary power company would probably be able to provide them with more power at a better cost but the sponsor didn't seem to bat an eye at my estimate.

MWBCs for this are not a great idea; a badly-behaved vendor takes down a well-behaved one. Or the cook's fryer kills all their lights. I've used them when the loads are more known, but still had problems. (The guy selling table lamps- had a 200w lamp in each one, and was demo-ing, oh, 10-12 at a time....)

Do you have to provide lights for vendor tents or do they?

No lights. You are persuading me to change my plan with your horror stories!

I'll stick with GFCI's; thanks to everyone for weighing in.
 

jap

Senior Member
Occupation
Electrician
My temp panels have standard breakers in them with GFI Receptacles mounted below the panel on a backboard with in use covers.
We did away with going to the vendors we have the vendors come to us.
Each subpanel is placed within 30 feet of their location and each vendor has their own receptacle or receptacles to plug into.

If the receptacle they're plugged into trips we unplug their cord, reset the gfi, and plug a fan in. if it runs, the problem is theirs, if it doesn't the problem is ours.
9 times out of 10 its theirs.

If you stretch the cords and receptacles to them and it rains, they'll be looking to you to get their power on. if their cord is laying in the wet grass and trips, as long as your gfi resets when you unplug their cord the problem remains theirs.

Just my 2 cents worth.

JAP>
 

tom baker

First Chief Moderator
Staff member
We have done event power for 25+ years, had about 20 spiders we would set out, all GFCI protected and now are moving to permanently installed GFCI receptacles.
We see all kinds of vendor equipment, 100 ft 16 AWG extension cords, etc.


But I have never had a GFCI trip.

For our power requirements we make the vendors supply us with amps/volts and or watts and we allocate where they go based on there application.
We have tree well receptacles for holiday lighting, they will plug in and trip the 20 a breaker, when you check its 3 crock pots at 1600 watts..
or they say I only have a hot dog cooker, but show up with a coffee pot, griddle,....
 
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