Electrical Equipment Needed

[alfsly]

First time posting here so please take it easy on me.
I am a building owner and project manager on a project where we are turning an old fire hall into 9 apartments. I have a great electrical contractor who has done rough in and everything has passed up until this point. I also have a full set of engineered drawings including the Electrical engineering. The problem is that there was a miscommunication between myself and the Electrical contractor about who was purchasing the main electrical equipment coming into the building. It was most likely my bad but regardless why I am posting and am scramble mode to find somewhere to source the equipment I need in a timely manner.

The load calc for the electrical is 308A not including the house panel and it only has house lights, a 115V recirc pump and 2 washer and dryers that are both gas dryers. Most of the stuff is ran on natural gass and I have high seer mini splits providing my heating and cooling throughout. Small studios and 3x 2 bedroom apartments are what are going in the building. I just wanted to put that out there so you understand why the low load calc. Here is what the Note is on my drawings that show what the electrical engineer spec'd.
1. Meter center shall have Nema 3R Enclosure Rated 42,000 AIC Containing 1-400/2 Main Breaker and 10-100/2 Tenant Breakers with utility Meter Sockets. Unit Shall be similar and equal to Siemens "Power Mod" style residential Meter Stacks.

Unaware of there being a shortage on meter banks or this equipment I was shocked when the supplier said there would be over a year delay on getting this equipment. They proposed an alternative to see if the electrical inspector would accept as the alternate route material would be "in stock". Her alternate plan was to do a trough with 10 individual meters and disconnects off of a single 400A disconnect. He was ok with that but when I got the quote for this " in stock" material was 4 months for some of the components.

I am behind the 8 ball here and looking for any suggestions or ideas as to either a) where to get something similar to what the electrical engineer spec'd or b) an alternative and where I might find a supplier who would have that alternate material in stock or a more reasonable lead time. One note I do have a 4 gang meter box that we took out of the building that both my electrician and electrical inspector said I could use.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide or suggest.

 

[roger]

We are allowing this thread for help in answering the questions only, this is not a "how to" question.

 

[Rick 0920]

Not the prettiest way to do it, but a solution could be to use (2) NEMA 3R 200A main breaker enclosures and 1 320A meter socket enclosure.
Use the metal wireway as described above with power distribution blocks. Then you could have your individual meters and 100A mains as described above. Just supply (5) units from each 200A disconnect. If by chance you are not under the 2020 NEC, all the mains could possibly be fed from the 200A disconnects provided they had a means to lock down the 100A mains. But I still think the best way would be to keep the units in individual 100A enclosures.

 

[petersonra]

Get a service rated enclosed 400 amp breaker. Feed big wires into trough. Tap off to individual breakers and meters. Utility will likely want a way to seal the breaker and trough

 

[Rick 0920]

Make sure and run this by the engineer and AHJ since the the job appears to be spec'd and submittals have been issued.

 

[Rick 0920]

Get a service rated enclosed 400 amp breaker. Feed big wires into trough. Tap off to individual meters. Utility will likely want a way to seal the breaker and trough

I think his problem was the wait time on 400A disconnects.

 

[petersonra]

I think his problem was the wait time on 400A disconnects.

I think he could get an enclosed 400 A CB faster than 4 months. Probably have to buy a 3 pole breaker and just leave one pole unused.

 

[petersonra]

here is a 400 amp CB in stock. 65 ka at 240 V. buy it and a handle and put it in a disconnect box from hoffman.

 

[petersonra]

It has occurred to me that this arrangement might not satisfy the need for a service rated disconnect. I am not sure off the top of my head how to get around this.