Article 225 Feeders

[vw55]

I have a question regarding the application of Article 225 with respect to residential electrical services.

I have a service remotely located from the house with 6 sub-breakers to feed the panels inside the house itself. I have also designed an electrical service that stands on the outside of the home and sub-fed the panels from that location. I have been doing high end residential for a number of years and have never run into this before, but the contractor is asking me if he has to relocate the distribution section of the electrical service into the house to comply with Article 225 regarding outside feeders?

My main question is that in both cases, the service point and the service equipment are located outside and not inside the building. Why is one acceptable and the other isn't? I'd appreciate any/all help in enlightening me. Thanks!

 

[suemarkp]

You question isn't completely clear to me. A picture would help. Outside -vs- inside doesn't sound like your issue, it is whether the service and/or main feeder is at the building or detached from it. You are only allowed one supply (service or feeder) to a building unless those other feeders or services meet some of the exceptions (e.g. standby power, fire pump, different voltage, ...). It may seem silly that you can have a panel on a building with 6 feeder to subpanels within it, but can't put that same main panel on a pad a few feet away from the building and run 6 separate feeders to the building but that's the rules.

If the building service is mounted on the outside of the building, then there should be no problem with 6 or even more feeders to the inside of the house as long as you have a single disconnect on the service. The single disconnect rules would be 230.71(B), 230.85, and 225.41. The supply to a structure rule is 225.30 and 230.2 for services.