(2) Apartments and (1) Retail Space

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radiopet

radiopet

Senior Member
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Spotsylvania, VA
Hey Guys-

I sat in today on a meeting between (2) different localities and the following came up and man you would have died to be a fly on the wall. Lets see how you all feel.

1.) The service latteral is coming into a 3 gang meter base. There is a main breaker panel in each tenent space.

One locality said they consider this one building and one service and that they must install exterior service disconnects under each meter socket for each space.

One locality said they are all seperate tenent spaces and out of the meter enclosure each are considered service conductors to the panels in each unit and do not need to be grouped.

There was indeed fire walls or fire rated ceilings between all given spaces....now from the drawing I saw one of them will have a service disconnect outside anyway because they could not meet the 230.70...so they said since that unit had to have a service disconnect at the meter...they all had to....lol

Here was how it was wired not to the best I can gather....3 gang meter base, the center meter is back to back with the retail space main breaker panel and the meter on the right feeds a service disconnect on the outside of the wall and then on to the panel in the one dwelling space.....the other meter socket on the left has no exterior disconnect and feeds a panel on the second floor up the side of the building...

They spent nearly 3 hours ranting back and forth over it.....any thoughts
 
They need to be grouped in my book. Very seldom do rated assemblies make for a "seperate building", unless they are indeed separate buildings that just happen to touch. I will admit that people seem to get away with not grouping them on a regular basis, and that really frustrates me.
 
So are you saying that when you have a single latteral that hits a 3 gang meter enclosure that if you have a single building....even if all spaces have seperate entrances and considered individual dwellings and retail space that from the meter to each disconnect in each space you would require them to have disconnects outside grouped because it is a single building. Just asing marc....nothing more and no i am not putting words in your mouth....
 
radiopet said:
So are you saying that when you have a single latteral that hits a 3 gang meter enclosure that if you have a single building....even if all spaces have seperate entrances and considered individual dwellings and retail space that from the meter to each disconnect in each space you would require them to have disconnects outside grouped because it is a single building. Just asing marc....nothing more and no i am not putting words in your mouth....
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That's exactly how I see it. It's the same building. These are not three services. It's one service, metered three times, who's service disconnects need to be grouped. From where I'm sitting, it seems very clear to me, but I coincidently do a lot of mixed use work and multi-tenant services, so it might be a little more relevant to me than others.
 
JohnJ0906 said:
What about town houses/row homes? The services aren't grouped for them?
Seperate addresses, firewall seperation.
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They are here.

In any event, that's not what we're talking about. He has one lateral. That's one service. Group your disconnects, por favor.
 
well i can say this.....I went into the meeting very secure in what I believed and after watching about 15 guys ( three of which have served on the NFPA Code Panel)....by the end many were confused as it was not about what seems right...it was about what the NEC says.....I left wondering if everyone would have been better off not meeting after all....lol
 
mdshunk said:
They are here.

In any event, that's not what we're talking about. He has one lateral. That's one service. Group your disconnects, por favor.
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Same here, same just about everywhere I would imagine for any condo, townhouse, apartment type of building with firewall separation. Esta bien.
 
I know that many people think that each meter constitutes a different service, and others (like me) think that each drop or lateral is the service, no matter how many times it happens to be metered. Two camps who will probably never agree, but my mind is made up.
 
mdshunk said:
I know that many people think that each meter constitutes a different service, and others (like me) think that each drop or lateral is the service, no matter how many times it happens to be metered. Two camps who will probably never agree, but my mind is made up.
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I agree with you. Do I get any brownie points?
 
lol.....Well i did a search on here and typed in about grouping and well lets just say it is not THAT clear to many Marc.....even some mods disagree on the intent.....check out some past posts.
 
Paul, think about this... would you ever permit the installation of a 20-stack meter stack with integral tenant breakers without a main disconnect ahead of it? This doesn't directly relate to your problem at hand, but your answer to that question will help you better decide the answer to your present problem.
 
radiopet said:
lol.....Well i did a search on here and typed in about grouping and well lets just say it is not THAT clear to many Marc.....even some mods disagree on the intent.....check out some past posts.
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I agree. Like I say, my mind is made up, and my approach also happens to represent the most conservative and perhaps safest approach. It definitely makes for an installation with more "sex appeal", if you know what i mean.
 
mdshunk said:
I know that many people think that each meter constitutes a different service,
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And those people are wrong. (IMO) :grin:

I also think that many time the power companies call each meter a service.



and others (like me) think that each drop or lateral is the service, no matter how many times it happens to be metered.
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IMO the NEC backs that view.
 
mdshunk said:
I It definitely makes for an installation with more "sex appeal", if you know what i mean.
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I know what you mean, but never in a million years would I equate a meter stack with "sex appeal." :D
 
well I never gave you my stance. I also believe they should be grouped. However, I was told point blank by a chief electrical inspector from somewhere i dont know that I was wrong and each space is treated like an individual building and the meter does not determine a service so he said that no grouping was required....so i just listened and the first post i made was what transpired.
 
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