2020 NEC requirement for outdoor disconnect on 1 or two family dwelling units.

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More states have now adopted the 2020 code.
NECInEffect11120.ashx


For decades now, California has required EITHER an external service disconnect, OR it can be " inside nearest the point of entrance of the service conductors ", meaning (I assumed) the firefighters could look at the service mast and know exactly where the disconnect would be if it were inside. On most single family and duplex/triplex/quadplex homes, the meter is put on the side wall of the garage closest to the street, so putting an exterior entrance door separate from the garage door is more expensive than using a meter/main, resulting in 99% of the services I have seen here on houses built in the last 30+ years having that external disconnect means. I'm not sure when that went into effect, but it was that way since I started in the late 70s. Decades ago I did some work on some old pre-WWII homes that had basements, some of those had the service disconnect in there, making the firefighters have to go into the basement of a burning building to kill power. I always thought that was the stupidest thing in the world...
 
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Washington state has adopted the 2020 NEC. The outside disconnect took effect November 1st. All new construction abd any meter replacements will be required to have the outside disconnect.

I also volunteer with my local fire dept. we always call the power company for a disconnect, even on mobile homes.
Mobile homes have required an outside disconnect here for years. The problem we gave us too many of them have been bootlegged in with out the disconnect. Abd it’s a batter of locating the disconnect. It could be anywhere or covered up with junk.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
??? I see 5 states that have adopted the 2020...
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I think the Covid thing this year maybe has had an impact on normal process of transitioning to new code in many places. Here we likely would normally would have been on a new NEC anywhere between April to August, depending on when legislation went through to have the lawbooks changed. This year with Covid it never even made it to the floor in the legislature. The law would normally go in effect 90 days after being approved by legislature.

Legislation did take a break early on in this covid thing with only priority items even getting much of any attention to bring up any special sessions. I can assure you adoption of 2020 NEC doesn't get very high on the priority list when covid alone created many budget related issues.
 
kwired said:
I think the Covid thing this year maybe has had an impact on normal process of transitioning to new code in many places. Here we likely would normally would have been on a new NEC anywhere between April to August, depending on when legislation went through to have the lawbooks changed. This year with Covid it never even made it to the floor in the legislature. The law would normally go in effect 90 days after being approved by legislature.

Legislation did take a break early on in this covid thing with only priority items even getting much of any attention to bring up any special sessions. I can assure you adoption of 2020 NEC doesn't get very high on the priority list when covid alone created many budget related issues.
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I don't think this would be too likely to get buried deep into some other bill like what happens on the federal level of legislation either.
 
retirede said:
“You Texans need to settle down or we’ll split Alaska in two. Then you’ll only be the third largest state!”

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Years ago when I worked for Square D, I supported the Pacific Northwest, which included Alaska. In a national meeting, I heard the Texas guy arguing with the guy in Denver over who had the most geography to cover (the Denver guy covered from the Canadian Border to the Texas border, west of the Mississippi to Nevada, not including the Pacific states). I argued they were both wrong, that I had the most geography. Without the internet at the time it was hard to find a full scale map of Alaska, but we had overhead projector maps that showed a scale. So with two projectors I overlaid the Alaska map on top of the rest of the US, then adjusted for scale, it covers roughly half of the rest of the country. They shut up...
 
Jraef said:
Years ago when I worked for Square D, I supported the Pacific Northwest, which included Alaska. In a national meeting, I heard the Texas guy arguing with the guy in Denver over who had the most geography to cover (the Denver guy covered from the Canadian Border to the Texas border, west of the Mississippi to Nevada, not including the Pacific states). I argued they were both wrong, that I had the most geography. Without the internet at the time it was hard to find a full scale map of Alaska, but we had overhead projector maps that showed a scale. So with two projectors I overlaid the Alaska map on top of the rest of the US, then adjusted for scale, it covers roughly half of the rest of the country. They shut up...
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But you possibly had less clients to represent than either of those two.
 
Jraef said:
So with two projectors I overlaid the Alaska map on top of the rest of the US, then adjusted for scale, it covers roughly half of the rest of the country.
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Alaska (663,000 mi2) is less than a quarter of the area of the continental US (3,120,000 mi2). You might have been using an excerpt of Alaska from a Mercator projection, where the stretch changes enough over the latitude range of Alaska that even if you rescaled the projection for scale agreement at the south end of Alaska, it would still be significantly overrepresenting the size of Alaska.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
Alaska (663,000 mi2) is less than a quarter of the area of the continental US (3,120,000 mi2). You might have been using an excerpt of Alaska from a Mercator projection, where the stretch changes enough over the latitude range of Alaska that even if you rescaled the projection for scale agreement at the south end of Alaska, it would still be significantly overrepresenting the size of Alaska.

Cheers, Wayne
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Yes, you're probably right. However, this is more to the point what I was getting at with them; that the typical maps of the US show Alaska at a different scale to make it all fit on a page, but it is a LOT bigger than most people realize.
JN9XZzvWtJgCTsdZZsNqbtHl4QWg5iwLCIfdO1rGZfU.jpg
 
Jraef said:
Yes, and yet, more dollars in business than the Colorado guy (because of the Trans Alaska Pipeline and Prudhoe Bay oil field).
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I can believe that.

TransCanada been in process of trying to build a pipeline through NE. Will pass within about 3/4 mile of my house, if latest plan ever is approved. And a pumping station will be only about 4-5 miles away (as the crow flies). Has had a lot of resistance, but is possibly close to being approved. This year they have been staking out a lot of things and more recently have been spending $$ improving roads in the area and have started setting up a "laydown yard", no material brought in yet but the area is fairly established with security fence already in place and security guards already patrolling it.

My son works at county sheriff office as a dispatcher and jailer. TC had talked to the sheriff earlier this year and informed him they will be donating funds to their department to be used to give all employees of their department a pretty modest raise during the time they will be doing construction operations, because with the amount of resistance to their installation they expect to need law enforcement services. Won't say much more than that, can probably go political pretty easily
 
Hmm.. here it is 9 feet from ground so only painting an orange half circle a foot from the building... Firemen have ladders and can climb one to turn the breaker off, or use a pole... but theives have to carry their own danged ladder..lol...
 
kwired said:
I can understand it being simpler for fire fighters to have such an outside disconnect, and even agree that some older installs already have an outside disconnect that meets the new code requirement (other than new labeling requirements that apply to it).

But why does it just apply to one and two family dwellings? Seems there are many more non dwelling applications out there that even though met NEC code when installed are more complex when it comes to assuring you have disconnected everything than is typical for a one or two family dwelling. How about a large facility that has legal multiple services that are not in same location? Signs were required, but still makes it harder for those fire fighters when they want to kill all the power to the facility. Now you need to know the layout of the facility to find those additional service disconnecting means even if they are well marked and other locations are given in the signage.
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kwired
The issue of finding the service disconnects in the more complex structures is covered by fire service preplanning of premises. Any structure which is subject to fire inspection can be pre-planned. Naturally that includes the location of all of the utility shut offs. The first due special service; such as a ladder company or heavy rescue squad, will take care of shutting down all utilities and the firefighter who's riding position preassigned duties include utility control will yank, if it's paper, or pull up, if it's electronic, that element of the preplan to guide them to all of the places they need to already have been, when yesterday would have been soon enough to have it done.

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Tom Horne
 
kwired said:
You are still allowed six disconnects. However they can no longer be all in one panelboard and must be in separate vertical sections with barriers between them of switchboards.

You can still have six individual fused disconnects or individual enclosed circuit breakers as your service disconnecting means.

The main goal here I believe is they don't want you to have exposed live bus or other live terminals when working with just one of those disconnecting means. The more recently required line side barriers on a single main apparently is acceptable though. Canada I'm pretty sure they have for many years required an additional metal shield over the supply conductors so there is nothing live inside with the main off and the regular cover removed.
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kwired
I have to tell you that after 45 years of volunteer fire and rescue work I now fervently hope that the Canadian Style panels are required in the NEC soon. There seems to be no way to get Harry and Harriet Homeowner to realize just how dangerous it is to work in a hot panel. If there were a separate dead front over the service conductor terminations several people who I treated and/or transported would not have been injured.

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Tom Horne
 
jusme123 said:
I actually agree with the outside disconnect requirement , it should have been a requirement 20-30 years ago. The disconnect should also be integral to the meter assemble
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jusme123
The power utilities already have a tizzy when we pull a meter or cut their drip loops and now you want to put a switch for use by someone other than their employees in their meter's enclosure? I suspect you are trying to cause a mass extinction of power utility lawyers and managers from stress induced heart attacks.

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Tom Horne
 
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